I interviewed upwards of 29 people (which the professors of Gov 10, Math 9, Public Policy 11 and Psychology 11 would all tell me is not a particularly impressive sample size) for this article and have come to quite the statistically significant conclusion that nearly all of those interviewed (28 out of 29, to be precise) use an Excel spreadsheet to plan their class schedule and major, plot their D-Plan and often calculate their maximum possible GPA. The holdout, Sapna Chemplavil '11, says she hates Excel and has instead chosen to forge ahead with her own design, an Excel-like system made from tables in Microsoft Word. Way to break the mold, Sapna.
The use of the Excel spreadsheet as a tool for planning was surprisingly consistent across the board, from the humanities major who has taken what seems like two classes in half of Dartmouth's departments to my favorite premed, who is double-majoring in econ and bio. Ahra Cho '11, you're a nerd.
According to most of the students I spoke to, long-term planning at Dartmouth goes something like this: make a column for each term; fill in each column with the classes you plan on taking that term; create additional pages in which you plot your major and/or minor, distributive requirements and GPA. People I interviewed sometimes waffled, however, on the GPA.
In keeping with my strict adherence to statistical standards, I guess we can all conclude that the vast majority of Dartmouth students are schedulers in various stages of shameful hiding. Because even if we've reconciled with getting B's, being totally unsure about what we really want to do with our careers and thinking of maybe applying for like an internship in our off term or something, we've still got our Excel spreadsheets.
Still, it seems that by the time sophomore summer rolls around, we compulsive charters have deviated or accept that we will deviate more from our carefully plotted lives than we imagined freshman fall.
Take the example of Liana Chase '11, a world-traveling premed and anthropology major, who made substantial use of spreadsheets to craft a D-Plan that satisfied all her major, professional and distributive requirements until she realized it was totally logistically implausible.
"I had a plan that seemed to make sense until I realized it would mean taking six terms of classes in a row and then being away from Dartmouth for a full year, with two off terms, an FSP, and transfer term," Chase explained.
Chase's experience highlights another common theme for students. The flexibility that the D-Plan offers can come with a price. Many of the students I interviewed recalled seeing friends over-schedule themselves in an attempt to fit everything in, and then end up regretting that they didn't take advantage of a wider range of opportunities.
Nazar Alexander '12 agreed, saying that he doesn't regret having sampled a variety of classes in different departments his freshman year.
"When I came to Dartmouth, I had no plans whatsoever," Alexander said. "I was really taken aback by all the students who knew exactly what they wanted to do. I don't know if I recommend coming to Dartmouth with the whole four years already planned out because Dartmouth has so much to offer that you should just experiment, at least your first year anyway."
Some students, like Shanel Balloo '11, have noticed that students often carefully plot D-Plans based on their personal goals freshman year, but then make changes based on the plans of their friends or significant others.
"I guess the important thing, for me at least, is not to schedule your life around close friends, significant others, etc. if it gets in the way of what you really want to do, like a great internship, FSP or LSA you've always wanted to go on," she said. "I schedule my life around what's right for me right now, which might not always be the best plan, but that's the beauty of the D-Plan you can change it according to your varying interests."
It's also interesting to see the degree to which Dartmouth students plan the minutia of their time at the College, but not their careers or life goals. Most of the students I interviewed said as much, pointing out that the D-Plan lends itself well to, and maybe even encourages, compulsive planning, while the real world isn't so easy. Even the hyper-scheduled pre-professional students said that they don't have many plans for after pre-professional school.
I've had a hard time deciding what to make of our need to fit our lives into neat rows and columns. Perhaps it's because the Excel spreadsheet makes us feel comfortable. However, when you think about what it means to relegate four years of your life to tsmall rectangular boxes and the absurdity of trying to carry out that kind of planning over the next 50 or 60 years, we are confronted with the reality of just how much we can't control.
