When I left for Berlin at the end of winter term, I could not have been happier to escape from the confines of Hanover, a town that I described to my international friends as consisting of "some trees and some bad beer." My gripe with Dartmouth, however, had less to do with the ubiquity of Keystone and more to do with the hazing scandals that blackened the College's good name.
In truth, it didn't take much to undermine my faith in Dartmouth. The widespread condemnation of the Greek system only confirmed what I'd suspected since the first weeks of my freshman year, when I discovered that the intellectual discussions promised by glossy admissions brochures were not a feature of most pregames. When I arrived in Berlin, I was only too happy to let German acquaintances believe I hailed from Hannover, Germany.
But several weeks into my stint as a German Universitaet student, I realized several important things. Because you may never have the opportunity to experience an alternate collegiate setting, I'd like to relay my insights to you, if you'll permit me a moment of upperclassman condescension.
First, the American university system in general, and Dartmouth in particular, offers a remarkably high-quality education. Two days into finals and five pages into what is supposed to be a 20-page paper, you may lose sight of the benefits of such a demanding program. Far be it from me to condemn your temporary resentment of the class that's responsible for your week-long hermitage in the stacks, but I nevertheless counsel you to appreciate Dartmouth's academic rigor. At Potsdam Universitaet, I found myself missing the high expectations and heavy workload that are standard fare at Dartmouth. I didn't miss the waking up on the 1902 Room sofa in a puddle of drool at 6 a.m., but I did miss the courses that have so effectively pushed and challenged me, thereby enabling (and even engendering) some of my best thinking.
Second, Dartmouth is one of the few places in the world where you will have the opportunity to devote yourself entirely to things that interest you. In much of the fabled "real world," to which my time in Germany preliminarily introduced me, you will be saddled with a seemingly endless array of responsibilities. At my German university, I had to cook all but one of my daily meals, pay exorbitant monthly gym fees, manage my dwindling finances and so on.
These tasks are all features of a normal adult existence, and not everyone will navigate them as poorly as I did (muesli from the box for every meal for two weeks, anyone?), but they're also undeniably time-and-energy consuming. At Dartmouth, on the other hand, you're not only enabled but also actively encouraged to dedicate as much time as possible to accomplishing your goals.
The third and most important thing I realized abroad is that starting college is difficult. You're going to miss your friends from home, and you're probably going to lament that most of your conversations consist of a series of questions about your hometown or the "sick" party hosted by a floormate whose name you cannot recall. But as you get to know the people around you, you'll learn that nearly all of them have interesting things to say.
Although I don't regret being vocal about my opposition to the Greek system, I regret the negativity and cynicism with which I approached Dartmouth during my first years here. Dartmouth is not as utopian as admissions brochures would have you believe, but it presents a wonderful academic environment populated with bright, motivated people. The fraternities, which I continue to condemn, are nevertheless home to many people who don't deserve to be written off solely in virtue of their particular affiliations (indeed, to write them off thus would be to perpetuate the reductionism that grounds my critique of the Greek system in the first place).
In light of the controversies surrounding Dartmouth today, I urge you to fight against the culture of sexism, racism, homophobia and classism; in light of my own history of bitterness and anger, I urge you not to conflate a flawed system with its individual constituents. It's clear that Dartmouth needs to change (start the revolution, '17s!), but my time abroad has helped me to understand that it's also worthy of appreciation.
