I have a confession to make to the '17s: I never ran all of the 14 laps during my freshmen bonfire.
Sure, the bonfire was exciting at first: the collective effervescence of our class as we made our way through the campus was more intoxicating than a cheap can of beer could ever be. When we arrived, we waited eagerly as the choir sang and the president gave a futile speech in front of Dartmouth Hall through an ineffective sound system.
We were still high-strung on the novelty of the bonfire for the first few laps. I tried to stick with my floormates, but the fire grew hotter, the crowd began to push and jostle and we were soon separated from each other.
By the time the bonfire blazed at its peak intensity and the upperclassmen called for blood, the tradition quickly lost much of its initial exuberance. But we continued to run because everyone else was running. We ran because of everyone who had run before us, because of everyone who would run after us and everyone who was running with us. We ran because we were expected to carry on the tradition and because we didn't want to miss out on what we were taught was one of the defining moments of the Dartmouth experience.
And although the embers of that night have long since faded away, I think many '14s are still running around those well-beaten tracks of tradition and expectations. On a small campus like Dartmouth, there is a usual prescribed Dartmouth experience, maintained by traditions that we are expected to partake in, such as DOC Trips, the Greek system and sophomore summer. This isn't necessarily bad. Tradition allows us to maintain a sense of solidarity and connectivity to the past.
Yet I've seen many of my classmates become paralyzed by our relatively narrow definition of the Dartmouth experience. Considering our student body's unusually high rate of Greek affiliation, many feel as if they must endure all the aspects of the normative narrative of college experience due to the fear of missing out. They continue to run because everyone else is running, even if they must make themselves uncomfortable or circumscribed in the process. This way, students reluctantly force themselves to endure the unrelenting running mill of collegiate life.
By my 11th lap, the bonfire had lost any semblance of fun, so I left. In retrospect, the event was characteristic of the remainder of my Dartmouth career. I never attended Trips or Strips. I never went on an LSA or an FSP. I never became affiliated or even felt compelled to rush. I skipped my sophomore summer. I still don't know or care to know what the Salty Dog Rag is. I found the conventional path to be too limiting, too time-consuming and most of all, too uninteresting.
In this sense, my path through Dartmouth has been unorthodox, but despite my unconventional journey, I've gotten all the things that a student could hope to get from his or her college experience, and I'm proud to call myself a daughter of Dartmouth. I've met fascinating people, made lifelong friends, found my significant other and taken advantage of all that Dartmouth had to offer because I knew where I wanted to go, I knew what I wanted to do and I knew how to get it. By choosing to stick to my own path, I have encountered immense setbacks and disappointments but, most of all, happiness in knowing that I was on the course that was right for me.
In truth, there is no set or correct iteration of the Dartmouth Experience. As long as you know yourself and what you want, happiness can and does exist beyond the traditional social expectations, and every such path is wholly legitimate in and of itself. There are so many things that Dartmouth offers to you, so many paths that you can take. It is up to you to find the path that is right for you, whether that is through a common, much-trodden track or perhaps the one less traveled.
