Last fall, feeling somewhat disenchanted about this thriving New Hampshire college, a friend of mine decided to head for an exchange term at University of California at San Diego. What I neglected to realize was that, in the process of coercing me into following him West for the Winter term, he also provided me with the perfect solution to my disillusionment.
"After all, you won't know what you have until it's gone," he said. (Or was it "the grass is always greener...?")
Fast forward almost four months later, and I was riding our faithful Dartmouth Mini-Coach, heading north along Route 89 (listening to John Denver's "Take Me Home, Country Roads"). Right then it hit me in the same abruptly awakening fashion that the New England winter hit my California roots last year. I was once again bubbling with anticipation and anxious excitement to arrive in Hanover. The sensation was reminiscent of a freshmen-to-be on his way to his D.O.C. trip, taking the plunge into college life. My Dartmouth Blues had disappeared.
Perhaps part of the inherent genius in the oft-criticized D-plan lies in its innate offering to cure our cabin fever. It may have taken a term away for me to finally appreciate the fact that despite all of Dartmouth's faults, we are all still incredibly blessed to be a part of it. If, as naive high school seniors, we signed our acceptance cards in hopes of a utopian Disneyland with two-fisted cotton candy, we thereby defined Tennyson's "blind and naked Ignorance." Sure, the October-April winter, the dating scene (or lack thereof), and the unhealthy and overbearing academic environment don't facilitate early morning smiles from any of us. But from my newly acquired vantage point, our strengths convincingly topple our shortcomings.
What I missed the most (and I do not mean to suggest this to be a universal prophecy) is not something tangible. It lies beyond the geographically diverse and vibrant student body, and beyond Dwight D. Eisenhower's personally stamped gorgeous campus. It runs deeper than our unmistakable tradition that echoes in deserto, or our number-one ranked faculty in all the land. In all its redundant and rather cheesy implications, Dartmouth's special recipe rests in the utter pride and spirit which it gradually instills in its students.
Now by school spirit, I refer not to sold out football games with 70,000 ivied crazies in a packed Memorial Stadium (although that would be nice), nor to a Princeton-esque "here I am, love me now" school pride (which, by the way, would not be nice). Instead, I defer my definition of our school pride to something as subtle as the abnormally high number of our own college sweatshirts put on in the morning. I allude to the fact that we are perhaps the most pronounced envy of any alumni of any institution in the country. Yes, we, the weekend dwellers of not-so-peachy scented basements, the audience to New Hampshire Primary Winners, the core by which the crust of Hanover lives, are among a handful of the privileged few.
Swarmed with suntanned, surfing, and unconditionally mellow San Diegans, there was no Dead Poets' Society, there was no "Carpe Diem." Nobody seemed especially elated to be there, they were just ... there. While I know not of any black-robed, Keats-impassioned, midnight cave-readers here, I do know that unlike UCSD and many other colleges (like our Crimson neighbor to the south), our non-commuting, close-knit campus provides the stage for an insatiable bunch who endeavor to take full advantage of every day.
When you go home for breaks and parents' friends and friends' parents seem to take on a particularly keen interest in your Ivy League experience, doesn't that just plain feel good? When that rare occurrence arises where you run into someone donning a Dartmouth logo in a bar (which in this case may not be quite so rare), isn't the instant camaraderie and companion-like connection almost eerie? By these examples, I mean to point out a special air of enthusiasm, not elitism.
Besides an 80 degree winter and a few surfing lessons, what proved to be most invaluable about my "away" term was a rejuvenated desire to once again be a Dartmouth student. If this sounded too much like a morale boosting, "feel good" article about Dartmouth College, it's probably because it was one. If the rest of you didn't need to hear it, I did.
