Competition? Please. Pause for a second and take a look at my life this term.
The Weekdaze
Step 1: Wake up. Slowly. Painfully. Fail. Wake up again in 30 minutes.
Step 2: Rub my eyes the whole time I'm walking to Collis to get those crusty bits of sleep out. I get the keys and begin my stint as the info desk guy. Chances are I'm wearing something remarkably similar to what I wore the day before. I've determined that rather than making me look grimy, wearing hoodies (and this damned yet super-awesome green vest it's this or a polo that makes me look like a child, so I'll take the lesser of two evils) consistently makes me easier to recognize around campus. This is one of my most transparent rationalizations that I still somewhat believe.
Step 3: Sit behind the Collis manager's desk and perch haughtily in my high chair. Periodically give myself pep talks to keep up my professional enthusiasm. Faxes! Renting out Frisbees! Green Print!
Step 4: Go "on rounds" when things get slow. Isolate messy individuals who look prepared to leave without cleaning and give them the Collis manager's eye.
Step 5: Finish my shift. Have the rest of the afternoon off to finger the glossy, unread magazine back issues languishing on my coffee table. Spend most of my time tending to the Internet.
Step 6: Rinse and repeat.
This is the cutthroat Ivy League? The closest it gets is when Green Print runs out of paper and people bitch viciously. I know your paper is due in your 2A and it started 5 minutes ago. That sucks, dude. I swear I'm not hoarding paper back here just to be an asshole and make your grade worse.
But that's tame. That's nothing. Truthfully, I'm not even taking classes. You might be thinking that I'm totally exempt from any discussion of competition because I'm not in the thick of it. At first I thought so too.
After giving it some observation, however, I don't think my off-term situation is that unusual. If you take a quick survey of your friends, you quickly realize that I'm one of many students "off" and not taking classes. Thanks to the D-Plan, Dartmouth students have a degree of flexibility that's unheard of at other schools. We're given the opportunity to dodge the usual summer internship racket that's unavoidable elsewhere. Not to mention the luxury of having only taking three classes a term, or two if you're in the mood.
Let me be clear non-competitive and apathetic are not the same. Do we sit on our hands all day ignoring our school work? I suppose I do because I don't have any, but for most people that's obviously not the case. Are grad schools and jobs and off-term internships at the forefront of many people's minds? For sure. Competition in a strict sense exists at Dartmouth, as it does anywhere where there's more than one person present.
Asking if Dartmouth is simply competitive really tells us nothing even kindergarten playpens are competitive about which kiddo can eat the most crayons. In relative terms the terms that matter Dartmouth is not a competitive school.
Students compete against the depersonalized median, they compete against nebulous opponents who stand in their way to get the best jobs, but when one student asks a friend for notes, help is there.
We're not out to cut each other's throats. More than most, Dartmouth students are supportive and have each others' backs. It's not a competition between me and my friends, but me and the system. I can deal with that.
