Dartmouth problems? Why Bored@Baker is so often decried by its staunchest adherents for its faux intellectualism. Why our FoCo grievances collectively fuel each other and coalesce into an epic delusion. While it's a tempting phrase to append to a hashtag, isn't it absurd that people complain about the cold in the year that winter never came?
Yes, Dartmouth does have problems. I know how it feels to have to purchase a case of Odwalla just to use up leftover DBA. I also know how gross those Odwallas taste at room temperature since I didn't have enough room in my mini-fridge. But I try to transcend issues like these by imbuing my Dartmouth experience with the things that hold meaning for me.
Students who measure their scholastic aptitude with figures approaching 2400 really ought to be more creative. So few of us truly take advantage of the potential we have to fashion unique experiences at the College. Sure, everyone knows how bodacious Barcelona parties are, but cradling a bottle of hard liquor like a baby probably will not afford you a chance to broaden your horizons.
Whether doing fieldwork on the shores of northeastern Greenland on the Steffanson Fellowship or adventure biking through Patagonian Chile on Schlitz Fund dollars, there is much more to going abroad than just studying. If I simply had stronger initiative, I could have been hiking the northwest shore of Lake Superior from Duluth, Minn. to the Canadian border over spring break. Instead, I spent my break listening to sad instrumental music on my living room couch.
The real Dartmouth problems are the experiences lost while complaining about Dartmouth problems.
I love catching bugs I have since I was little. There is no better way to spend a lazy spring afternoon. Of course I look silly, but I would be insane not to relish the premier bug-hunting grounds of the Upper Valley for that. At Dartmouth, however, a lot of these kinds of interests are shaped by our culture. Consider this: Many of us were obsessed with dinosaurs as kids, but if it were not socially sanctioned as a Dartmouth class, would we still care how skilled a hunter Deinonychus was?
I know a Dartmouth '13 who constructed her own study abroad program in Mongolia. I have a friend who is planning to create a major in ethnomusicology. Given the prevalence of such types at this college, it wouldn't be hard to guess that I'm an econ major. Yet in spite of the labels, I don't care about Goldman Sachs' recruiting process or landing a $100k job right after graduation. Instead, I plan to go to grad school and become a professor because I'm studying economics for my love of the subject itself.
Someone once told me that only successful authors are able to overcome the challenge of transcribing the spontaneity of conversation onto paper without sounding ridiculous. Conversation is such an awesome, amorphous entity, but there are so many repeated words and... um, syntax failures and vocal pauses that it... that it just doesn't work. Perhaps if we stopped trying so hard, it wouldn't sound so ridiculous. Perhaps the successful author realizes that it takes courage to be crazy.
Jimi Hendrix once said, "Craziness is like heaven." You're here for four years. Four years are too short to waste hoping that if you can produce enough complaints, they will magically transform themselves into resolutions.
Go crazy and taste heaven. I'll be doing the same.
