For fifth-year students who choose to continue their Dartmouth education at one of the College's graduate programs, life, at least in the traditional sense, can oftentimes be put on hold.
The most popular of these is the fifth-year program at the Thayer School of Engineering. Each year, engineering students face a tough decision: Can they handle another year at Dartmouth without their friends?
Fifth-year students spend one to three terms completing their Bachelors of Engineering degrees or continue for up to five terms to obtain their Masters of Science or Masters of Engineering Management, often earning their B.E. along the way. Thayer also offers a Ph.D. program.
A selling point of the fifth-year plan for many Dartmouth undergraduate engineering majors is that with a passing GPA most students are given direct admission bypassing an extensive application process and the GREs. A great number of students who attend the program come from outside schools including a large international student population, application is necessary for these students.
"I don't have a need to be on [the Dartmouth] campus. I now live in Norwich, and despite the Upper Valley's lack of social options, I don't go to frats or campus parties -- it is just too awkward," Ethan Levine '03 said. Levine is currently studying at Thayer to earn his M.E.M. Thayer is one of the few programs in the country to offer such a degree. This was the first year Thayer offered an on-campus living option but most students still opt to live off campus.
"My closest friends have left, but I still have some friends on campus and venture occasionally to DDS to meet up with them, but usually if I eat at a dining hall I go to Byrne, which is more expensive but better quality. I was active in Hillel and still go to services, and so I am not completely away from Dartmouth life," Levine said.
"The majority of my classes this year are actually business classes that give me new insight into the world of becoming a manager. The workload feels considerably less than when I was an undergraduate," Levine said. The M.E.M. is a degree in engineering and business that includes some curriculum and professors from Tuck. The grading system is designed in such a way that it reduces the stress from an undergraduate class. The only grades available are high pass, pass, low pass and fail.
Levine, who is interested in environmental corporate sustainability, will spend this summer working in Gloucester, Mass., for Rule Industries, a subsidiary of ITT, before coming back for his final term at Dartmouth in the fall. With Rule he will be working to develop life cycle specimens and look to model and quantify the environmental impact of products from manufacturing to disposal by looking all the way back in the supply chain.
This internship will be Levine's equivalent of a thesis and upon its completion will require reporting to his professors back on campus. Levine hopes his internship could become a job offer, but if not, he will participate in on-campus recruiting in the fall.
Elisse Gaynor '03 opted for the shorter route in order to earn her B.E. She finished the degree taking three engineering courses both fall and winter terms while serving as a teaching assistant for undergraduate courses.
"I found the coursework far less manageable. Imagine taking three engineering courses at the same time as an undergraduate. I was fortunate in that I took quite a few of the courses required for the B.E. as an undergraduate," Gaynor said.
"I still have a base of friends on campus, and I still play rugby. A lot of the Thayer kids who come had transfer terms here before so you start off knowing a lot of people. It is a misconception that it is awful to be a graduate student here, I have gotten to know a lot of really cool people in Tuck and the Med school," Gaynor added.
Gaynor plans to pursue architecture this summer then take a year off to work in the environmental engineering sector before returning graduate school. Both Levine and Gaynor said they would fully recommend the fifth-year program to any undergraduate.
"You need a technical degree if you want to do any sort of engineering after college that you just can't get from a liberal arts undergraduate institution. This is an excellent way to add to that education and earn degree for engineering" Gaynor said.
"The Thayer program is such a natural continuation of a Dartmouth education, though there is a social transition it is well worth it," Levine added.
