When I'm an enormously wealthy screenwriter who regularly sips gin and tonics poolside at the Beverly Hills Four Seasons, I am not going to give a dime of my money to Dartmouth. Which I'm sure is exactly what you wanted to hear a couple weeks before your fall term begins. It's the truth though, and I feel I owe you at least that much, given the amount of crap you will be fed over the next four years.
What happened was this: chock full of optimism and a go-get-'em attitude, I applied for something called a Senior Fellowship, which is essentially a chance to opt out of a traditional major in order to pursue a more meaningful project of your own creation. I wanted to write a screenplay based on a particularly esoteric and pleasantly insane artist named Henry Darger, and after literally months of filling out applications, getting recommendations, contacting museums and writing up proposals, it took a whole fifteen minute meeting for the Fellowship Committee (cue the Star Wars Imperial March) to respond, "No, thank you."
During your four years at Dartmouth, some things -- a lot of things, actually -- aren't going to work out. For instance, unless you happen to be an extraordinarily attractive girl, you will probably spend an inordinate amount of your freshman year trying to get into fraternity parties while guys like me derive an enormous amount of pleasure from turning you away at the door. You will come to school hoping to experience a veritable microcosm of cultures and experiences, only to find yourself eating lunch with the same six people every day. You will come seeking an education, hoping to enrich your mind while studying alongside some of the country's most talented youth, then wake up one day to realize that you signed up only for classes that wouldn't interfere with your sleep schedule.
It might surprise you, then, to know that when it comes time to graduate this June, I'm going to miss Dartmouth like a kleptomaniac misses the scent of a Wal-Mart. An incredibly cheesy-yet-poignant scene comes at the end of the Woody Allen film Manhattan (cleverly referenced in my title), in which his character records a list of all the things that have made his life worth living. And since op-ed columns seem always to degenerate into pure saccharinity, I figure who am I to change that.
So, for starters, there are the professors. If you look hard enough, I can guarantee that you will find a handful of professors who don't concern themselves with appealing to an administration that preaches plurality at the expense of academic integrity. I'm not talking about Dartmouth Review reactionaries who lament admitting minorities, but rather the teachers who are there because they have a passion for and a knowledge of their subject so powerful that it makes you want to applaud at the end of their lectures. You may want to take down the following surnames and save some trouble: Davies, Pease, Friedman, Thomas (Katie Louise), Gleiser and Gert.
Next, there are enough activities at Dartmouth to get involved in that if you are not the officer of some club or another by the end of your four years, then you have been doing something wrong. The scent of apathy is pungent at Dartmouth: don't fall into the trap of worrying only about your grades and your social life. My outlet has been writing, which I have pursued through involvement with our campus literary journal, as well as a daily e-mail publication called the Generic Good Morning Message that you should all subscribe to during your first days on campus if you ever hope to be on the inside.
Finally, there are your fellow students. It might take you a while, but somewhere among your 1,100-odd classmates are a handful of people with whom you will develop relationships that could prove more meaningful than any you've had before. Personally, I looked for and found a group of friends that could provide a constant source of wonder. People who could turn me on to a new album, book or film I'd never heard of before; people who would join me for a walk around the pond to escape the dreariness of the library; people who would buy me a drink when I found my wallet empty at the end of the night. More than anything else, my friends have been what has made my Dartmouth experience so meaningful, and it is they who have eliminated even the slightest hint of regret over my choosing to go to school in a town where your nostrils freeze the second you step out the door in March.
After all this long-windedness, I arrive at my true point. Which is that while a number of things haven't worked out, the things that have are what make Dartmouth so damn special. Honestly, I found myself talking about our College (and yes, it is your College now, too) at least twice a day this summer during my teaching job at St. Paul's, gushing about how incredible the place is. Learn to filter out all the crap -- and while your crap will be different from mine, it will still be there -- and you too may find yourself writing an op-ed piece for incoming freshman about what Dartmouth has meant to you.
I guess I haven't used the word yet, so I'll just go ahead and say it: I love Dartmouth. In fact, I am so embarrassingly affectionate toward the place that maybe, some day, I will cave in and send a check or two to the place. Only on the condition, however, that the members of the Senior Fellowship Committee are forced to cater my lavish cocktail parties. Dressed as mimes.
Have fun, kids.
