The night before your first day at Dartmouth will be a fitful one you're probably nervous thinking about where you'll live, who you'll meet and how you'll fit in but rest assured it's nothing like what Hollywood tells you it'll be. You don't immediately have to find your best friends or sign up for every club. We all know how college students are portrayed on the screen: lazy, alcoholic party animals, or the complete opposite loner, boring library dwellers. Here are a few college student stereotypes and how they measure up at Dartmouth.
The Roommate
If you haven't seen the movie with this same title yet, congrats, I definitely don't recommend it. Spoiler alert: Girl becomes obsessed with her college roommate and goes crazy. The reality is, you and your freshman roomie(s) will have different interests and sleep patterns. If you do become instant BFFs with your roommate, then good for you. But if not, that's okay too. This doesn't mean you two will hate each other (though having a roommate that constantly sleeps through their alarm and is forever late to their 9L may do the trick). Most people fall somewhere in the middle. Some stay close friends with their roommates, while others make a point to avoid eye contact with them as they pass each other in FoCo. All in all, as long as you are willing to be flexible and considerate then you'll be just fine.
The Animal House Frat Bro
Trust me, no one hates the Animal House-Dartmouth link more than I do, but this needs to be addressed. In this portrayal, frat bros never show up to class, always look like slobs and drink until they pass out. While this may be the case during meetings (you'll figure out what those are later), one quick look at all the khakis and button downs on campus will show you that most of the guys here look pretty put together. In fact, Dartmouth has a huge percentage of athletes, many of whom are required to be dry while in season. Frats may have one or two guys that rarely ever leave, but most of them also have lives outside of the basement.
The Sorority Girl
Despite what you've seen in Legally Blonde or that movie starring a pre-breakdown Amanda Bynes (you need to follow her on Twitter), sorority girls at Dartmouth are relatively normal. Sororities aren't actually full of gossiping and "betchy" girls and aren't at war with one another. Everyone I know has good friends in different sororities, and most are just groups of girls who watch bad rom-coms together and ask each other for wardrobe advice.
The Dumb Jock
You'd be amazed at how many students here are varsity athletes with 3.5+ GPAs. They have a whole awards ceremony for kids like these. There may be some recruited athletes that fulfill this stereotype, but the vast majority certainly don't.
The A Capella Zealot
Full disclosure, I'm not in an a capella group, but I'm 90 percent sure that they don't have underground sing-offs. I want to also debunk the myth that they prefix every other word with "aca" like in Pitch Perfect. In fact, most of my friends just roll their eyes at me whenever I ask if their rehearsals were "aca-awesome." Overall, we do have some great talent on campus.
The Overachiever
We were probably all in this category at one point or another, but we must move on. There's nothing more annoying than the kids who talk about how they were only 10 points shy of a 2400 on their SATs and how they were placed in Math 32 right off the bat. It will only make other people roll their eyes at you, guaranteed.
The Hot Mess
The friend who rarely shows up to class, and if they do they may still be drunk. This friend may have his priorities mixed up, but we love him anyway. In reality, the hot mess actually does more work than you give him credit for, and he'll graduate eventually.
The Friend Who Doesn't Try
In every college movie, there is always the stoner kid who is secretly a genius. I hate this friend. I want to be this friend. The person who does everything last minute and studies for half an hour and gets the A. If you are lucky enough to fall into this category, congratulations, but most of us don't. Most Dartmouth kids actually have to work hard to get good grades. Go to office hours to get some facetime with the prof and talk to them about any concerns. People who go to office hours often end up with better grades in their classes.
The Friend Who Always Has the Most Work
I have to mention the person who thinks that she has the most work out of anybody in school. We all have that friend who frantically runs up to you in the library and starts listing all the work that needs to get done and how many hours of sleep have been lost. If you're in the library, people will assume you are there because you have work to do. Complaining about work to your friends is fine, but no one likes a one-upper. Unless you are a math/physics/chemistry triple major, you need to get it together.
You rarely see a Hollywood movie with college students who are both studious and party hard, but most kids here at Dear Old Dartmouth fall under this category. It's important to know when to work hard and when to have fun. You're only here for four years; make sure you enjoy the ride!
