An Unusual Senior Spring: 21s Make the Best of their Last Term
By Claire Pingitore | April 7, 2021Seniors reflect on an unusual end to their Dartmouth careers.
Seniors reflect on an unusual end to their Dartmouth careers.
The Class of 2024 was given priority to live on campus during the fall and spring of this academic year, which means that many freshmen are spending their first Dartmouth winter scattered around the world. Whether arriving on campus for the first time or taking Zoom classes in a busy house, ’24s are facing a strange second term at the College.
In 1966, Martin Luther King Jr. addressed a press conference at the convention of the Medical Committee for Human Rights.
Each day’s early sunset is a reminder that winter is coming. The intensity of the cold and the scarcity of the daylight hours strengthen the appeal of the indoors. But as COVID-19 cases rise and many students plan to return to campus in the winter, the announcement of the Dartmouth Skiway’s reopening was a bright point in a dreary-looking flurry of information.
Undergraduate advisors have been busy this term with the normal demands of their jobs. That includes checking in on students’ wellbeing, creating floor programs and activities and in the case of my UGA, effortlessly opening the door to Topliff washer #2 after I thought it was stuck shut and would hold my clothes hostage forever. This fall, however, UGAs are also tasked with the extra responsibilities of enforcing the College’s COVID-19 policies.
In most years, new students hoping to join one of Dartmouth’s performing arts groups attend in-person events and auditions. This year, since singing, dancing or breathing next to someone has become the stuff of nightmares, performance groups adapted their audition processes to work in a socially distanced way.