If you had to put a price on your brain, how much would it be?
Jake Maguire: I honestly don’t know — I don’t necessarily consider myself to be priceless or anything like that, but I am a first-year student at Dartmouth and the sticker price for my education here is about $70,000 per year, so that’s a good place to start.
Eliza Jane Schaeffer: The collective value of a group of brains, one from each Dartmouth fraternity.
Zach Gorman: About $3.50.
Timothy Yang: Priceless — it’s not for sale!
Zachary Benjamin: At least 50 cents — I don’t want to sell myself short.
What are you passionate about?
JM: I am passionate about improving opportunities for other people, and I also love reading, writing, hanging out with friends, traveling and being outside.
EJS: Words. I find it incredible (in the true sense of the word) that groups of letters can hold so much meaning and can shape the way we view the world, but at the same time can be a source of ambiguity and disorder.
ZG: I’m passionate about life’s biggest philosophical questions. For instance, what’s the deal with airline food?
TY: Personality psychology. Even knowing just a little bit of personality psychology can open your world and explain many interaction phenomena of individuals.
ZB: Getting sufficient sleep. Unfortunately, I am more passionate about this topic than I am talented.
Would you rather love what you do but make no money, or have a boring job and be paid an exuberant amount of money?
JM: Back in high school, I would probably have chosen the former option, but now, I would probably choose the latter option because I’ve learned recently that choosing a well-paid career path after college doesn’t necessarily preclude you from doing something that you love down the road.
EJS: One hundred percent love what I do but make no money. Doing something I didn’t like for a living would drive me insane.
ZG: I’d rather love what I do and make an exorbitant amount of money. Wait, that wasn’t an option?
TY: I’m tempted to choose the first option, but there’s reality and making great money in my spare time for things that I love to do. I’m probably gonna end up choosing the first though.
If I gave you a penny, what would you tell me you were thinking about?
JM: Hmm, right now I’m thinking about how I desperately need to start studying for midterms but next week I’ll probably be thinking about springtime in Hanover and how I can best enjoy it. Hopefully the weather will be better by then!
EJS: The fact that the expression “a penny for your thoughts” is honestly kind of rude, because my thoughts are worth way more than a penny. Also, no one values privacy any more.
ZG: Why do we still make pennies?
TY: I’ll tell you a little bit of my insights to your personality!
ZB: “Wow, I just got a penny!”
What do you daydream about?
JM: I wouldn’t necessarily call it “daydreaming,” but I probably think about future courses and post-college plans too often. A couple of my friends have told me that I need to stop “over-planning” and I think that they’re right! I definitely want to enjoy all of my time at Dartmouth and living in the moment will help me achieve that.
EJS: I like to wonder where the people around me are going, and what they’re worried about right now. Worries can seem so all-consuming, but everyone has their own — it’s like worry inflation. In the grand scheme of things, our worries don’t matter. They’re cheap.
ZG: I daydream about night, so I can go to sleep and nightdream. I guess that would just be called dreaming.
TY: Living in the hopefully peaceful, technologically advanced and flourishing world of the 22nd century.
ZB: Naps. Which feels kind of inefficient, really.
