With the clear exception of West Point, Dartmouth is the only school where college students wake at daybreak to attend "drill." Simultaneously, unlike the majority of other colleges, at Dartmouth "Beirut" does not refer to some subpar sophomoric drinking game. Instead, it is merely known as the capital of Lebanon. Students embrace the academic and cultural idiosyncrasies that make life in Hanover distinctive from other colleges. Who wants to be ordinary?
However, the Dartmouth Plan, the most fundamental example of "Dartmouth exceptionalism," often causes frustration among students as mismatching D-Plans forces friends to endure one or multiple terms without seeing each other in Hanover. The constant social change seemingly frays the close-knit social fabric that is fostered by being a small College in a small northern New England town. Nonetheless, despite certain bothersome aspects, the D-Plan's benefits make the unconventional schedule an asset to the Dartmouth experience.
Students regularly cite the D-Plan to explain the "unique" dating culture on campus since incompatible D-Plans can transform relationships between Dartmouth couples into essentially long distance relationships. Friends specifically craft their D-Plans to reduce time away from other friends. On the other hand, the troublesome social shuffling of the D-Plan is not exclusive to Dartmouth. In fact, even students at schools with conventional academic calendars must commonly face the realities of missing friends due to study abroad programs (one of the many lessons "Saved By the Bell: The College Years" taught me). For all college students, the only constant is change. C'est la vie.
In terms of keeping friends together on campus, the D-Plan can be even better than traditional semester calendars. At schools with two-term calendars, students who study abroad are away from campus for longer increments of time, either for one four-month semester or an entire year, compared to the D-Plan's 10-week terms.
At other schools, mismatching study abroad schedules have similar, if not even more extensive, social consequences. Individuals who study abroad in the fall semester will go an entire year without seeing friends who study abroad the following spring semester. The semester schedule detaches friends from each other for one long chunk of time, relative to the D-Plan's on-off-on-off nature. On top of that, I am suspicious of any academic calendar that finds students trudging through the February snow during "spring" semester. The D-Plan tells it how it is (meteorologically speaking).
While the social realities of the D-Plan and the semester schedule are relatively comparable, Dartmouth's calendar offers better benefits to individual students. The D-Plan itself does not cause the undesirable social shuffle, rather it is due to the fact that so many students choose to spend additional time away from Hanover on FSPs and LSAs. The flexibility of the D-Plan simply makes studying abroad especially attractive. Conversely, without the D-Plan, no student would be able to brag about being "on" for like 11 consecutive terms (everyone knows "that guy").
With approximately 60 percent of Dartmouth students participating in study abroad programs, the highest rate in the entire Ivy League, an interesting dichotomy exists at Dartmouth. Though Dartmouth students live in the utopian "Hanover Bubble," the same students leave the Upper Valley in droves to study and volunteer on all four corners of the earth, eventually bringing their newfound perspectives back to the Green.
More Dartmouth students have more "horizon expanding" experiences through living and learning overseas than students at colleges that are supposedly grounded in the "real world." Dartmouth is ultimately better for it. After graduation when twentysomethings work in cubicles, mindlessly fretting over the merits of the Swingline to the Boston stapler, such meaningful opportunities forever evaporate.
An inevitable obstacle to working efficiently at leave-term internships or off-campus programs, the infectiously addictive blitz culture extends beyond the Upper Valley. Office supervisors become confused after interns from Dartmouth promise to "blitz" them their day's work. Even when away from Hanover, students can easily remain in "the loop" with their friends on campus.
Without the D-Plan, one of the most celebrated and anticipated components of the Dartmouth experience wouldn't exist -- sophomore summer. After the social shuffle of sophomore year, "Camp Dartmouth" fittingly unites the entire class and reminds us why being different is better.
Living life one 10-week period at time is the best way to "live in the moment" and truly appreciate time together with friends. What could be more Dartmouth?
