We've all heard the familiar claim that at Dartmouth we learn as much outside the classroom as we do in it -- that we learn as much from our peers as we do from our professors. I suppose it's possible that since I came to Dartmouth I've managed to find the least intellectual peers here, or that my sources for the above information managed to unearth every last class taught by Dartmouth's small, but extant, flock of senile professors. But I doubt it. Instead, I've begun to form the opinion that the intellectual climate at Dartmouth is as bleak as four inches of snow in April.
Granted, intellectualism is not the most tangible component of the Dartmouth experience. It's not like race, sexual orientation or class rank, which lend themselves kindly to the intrigues of the number crunchers in the admissions office. No, intellectualism exists in a statistical void. Maybe that's why almost every student with whom I discussed intellectualism at Dartmouth agreed that something was missing, but none could immediately elaborate on what they meant. Eventually, however, as the kernel of malaise seeped into their heads and started bouncing off the walls of their illustrious hat-racks, they began to develop a heightened awareness of the more concrete aspects of Dartmouth's intellectual cavity.
Amongst the most commonly mentioned problems with the state of intellectualism at Dartmouth, three were paramount. First, there seems to be a general consensus that intellectual conversation outside the classroom is lacking. I'm not talking about esoteric conversations that center solely around academic subjects. I'm referring to any conversation that goes past the superficialities of what it concerns, whether it be about drinking, literature or sports. According to the students I talked to, these are the conversations that are missing at Dartmouth. As Joe Hanley '08 put it, "I feel like the standard conversation at Dartmouth starts with, 'what classes are you taking?' and then moves immediately on to 'are you going out?' or 'did you go out last night?'"
Second, many students feel that the social scene at Dartmouth is dominated by excessive drinking, loud music and pong in crowded, dirty fraternity basements: a concoction of inherently anti-intellectual elements. Third, a number of people suggested that the extremely fast pace of classes in the trimester system has forced students to adopt a "work hard, play hard" mentality that discourages people from incorporating academic and intellectual conversations into their social lives. According to Laura Crowe '08, "by the time people get out of class and finish all their work they usually don't have the energy to get into an intense intellectual conversation."
While I agree with all three of the above points, I think the problem stems to a certain extent from a more fundamental source: students on campus don't have a lot to talk about. Sure, the mental fatigue, the loud music and the copious consumption of cheap beer around the attention-dominating game of pong don't do much to encourage intellectualism. But we have to ask ourselves how such a culture evolved -- and why it hasn't spread to other comparable institutions.
The truth is, I don't think Dartmouth students are particularly creative or innovative with their thinking, and, as a result, conversations become stale and intellectual apathy ensues. It's not that Dartmouth students aren't capable of thinking creatively -- it's that there is an overwhelming culture of conformity.
Unlike larger schools or city schools, Dartmouth doesn't afford its students the comfort of anonymity. At Dartmouth we are always surrounded by people we know: when we walk to class, when we go eat, when we drink and socialize, when we talk to our friends. I'm not talking about the people we are close to or the people who know us well enough not to misunderstand or misinterpret what we say or do. I'm talking about the people we kind-of know and have to see every day. People who know us so tenuously that their opinions of us are easily swayed. Surrounded by such people originality and creativity wither away, and thought becomes methodical. At Dartmouth we don't have cafes, or bars, or restaurants where we can escape with our close friends and test out new ideas with impunity. Instead, we have a microcosmic world of dining halls and fraternity basements where we are suffocated by the omnipresence of semi-acquaintances.
In the end, we learn quickly not to take chances with our thinking; we learn to fall in line and be smart but not different, and the result is a culture where students have no new ideas to get excited about and nothing to talk about. The result is a climate where intellectualism is dead.
