On the one hand, students residing in the Still North are faced with a conundrum. Dartmouth is little known in certain (read: most) circles. Confusions with similar state schools (read: UMass Dartmouth) frustrate us all the more because of our desire for recognition of our Ivy pedigree. Pride dictates that after the years of hard work that we put in to arrive here, we figure we may as well be able to drop a D-bomb and get some recognition. After all, Harvard's name landing in a quiet room can have a strongly gravitational effect centered on the speaker, a casual Princeton mention forces a mental elevation of the speaker's status and at the very least, Brown's name immediately indicates to the listener the speaker's zaniness, creative urges and eventual career as a Starbucks barista. Dartmouth should clearly be allowed similar rights.
On the other hand, Dartmouth prides itself on taking a low-key approach, on being a chilled-out Ivy version of hyper-stressed environments found elsewhere in New England. Yet by tooting our own horn to the outside world, we risk a violation of our own self-image. If your image is of the guy who doesn't hog the spotlight, how exactly do you broadcast that to others without simply fading into the background and out of mind?
From the crib to college, most of us have aimed for the stars and been told that we could reach them. And, for many of us, the symbolic top of the heap could be found at the Ancient Eight. Whether you've had a devoted alumnus parent regaling you with Dartmouth stories since birth or you came across Dartmouth because you spent junior and senior year trolling College Confidential for the Ivies, you're very much aware of the fact that Dartmouth is in the fetishized and much-lauded Ivy League. If you haven't heard it enough times before: Congratulations you did it. Thank yourself for forever easing family reunions with the social lubrication and respect supplied by Dartmouth's name and the Ivy stamp. Each compliment increases the likelihood that we will drop Dartmouth in casual conversation and run the higher risk of allowing our heads to become insufferably large. Perhaps soon, Hanover will tear from the surrounding New Hampshire territory and lift off into the sky, ripped from the Earth by our ever ballooning egos.
Still, I believe I've made peace with this issue. Positive reinforcement for a job well done is one of the best incentives to continue striving. More importantly, I believe that most students approach name-dropping in a deliberate way so that they might boost Dartmouth's name recognition for the sake of others. Love of Dartmouth runs deep in many people, as becomes all too apparent when alumni can't keep themselves away from campus, and our use of Dartmouth ultimately comes down to a desire to attract others here to share our memories and life-altering experiences. Overall, our intentions are there and respectable Dartmouth is a great school, and there is nothing wrong with taking pride in it and letting others know that fact in a non-obnoxious way. And let's be real, anyway: Harvard name-drops all the time and they're drastically lamer than we are. Someone's got to correct the balance in Dartmouth's favor.
