If Dartmouth is a bubble, should we pop it? Over the past few weeks, this paper has been flooded with myriad senior perspectives on Dartmouth, offering hindsight as a stand-in for wisdom. Truth be told, I think most of us lack wisdom. Wisdom is gained through removing yourself from comfort and divorcing yourself from the garden of thought that you have painstakingly cultivated. An isolated environment like this one is not conducive for this form of personal growth. The senior perspectives have made abundantly clear, however, that we need to branch out to appreciate the things we have in Hanover and acknowledge the things we lack.
Is Dartmouth a bubble? Well, we arrive on the Coach for first-year trips or orientation and graduate four years later having spent the lion’s share of our time in a tiny town comprised of a very distinct and traditional culture, hours away from other undergraduate institutions. While we’re here, uncommon words and phrases become so normalized that they roll off the tongue with our friends from home. How many of us have talked to outsiders about “flair,” “tails,” “sophomore summer” or “trips” and forgotten to add descriptors indicative of specialized vernacular? How many times have you uttered something similar to the phrase “this is how we do it at Dartmouth”? How many Dartmouth students have spent significant amounts of time at other universities doing anything but partying or studying with other Dartmouth students?
Why should we care about the bubbliness of our lives? People tend to get up in arms whenever the things in which they are invested get criticized. The importance that a bunch of 18- to 22-year-old men and women assign to getting into the right Greek house, being accepted for a Croo or joining a not-so-secret society obscures the fact that most of these constructs hold little importance outside the bubble. Dartmouth has a rich culture that sets it apart from its peers, and much of this culture is due to its remoteness. Yet we all probably care a little bit too much about the ups and downs of life in a little college town so removed from the rest of our lives. As an institution, Dartmouth forms an immersive universe that can sustain people for four years. The social competitiveness that pervades this campus is emblematic of a bubble environment where there are not enough outlets. It is unsurprising how seemingly insignificant things like accumulating flair, trips wristbands, underarm tattoos and graduation honors acquire currency.
So, are our pursuits within the bubble meaningless? The jaded among us may say so, but I challenge them to disregard the raw emotion at fraternity or sorority “bequests,” not admire rallies on the Green organized by societies to combat a hostile campus climate or frown at the people in funky clothes dancing in front of Robinson Hall. It’s really easy to see hypocrisy and fakeness in the hypocritical and fake organizations, in the people who make up our bubble. But letting that mindset dominate your impressions of this singular four-year experience denies our little Dartmouth community and its people a truly merited complexity. Writing off flawed yet beautiful things simply because of their flaws is in itself a form of ignorance.
I think that people fall prey to the Dartmouth bubble because they fail to put this small world in perspective. I’ve had the fortune to spend a lot of time off campus. I’ve run away from Hanover to spend weeks at a time at other universities. I have a skeptical group of friends and a family that is not easily impressed, constantly challenging me to question my surroundings. Things here haven’t always gone easy for me, and I’m not inclined to believe in these facets of campus life unflinchingly. We should encourage people to question their surroundings, but we should also encourage them to appreciate the small things for what they are — flaws and all.
In 20 years you won’t care who thought you were smart or attractive. In fewer years than that you’ll probably realize you weren’t as smart or attractive as you once thought. Don’t wait to pop the bubble. If you haven’t yet, try bursting it now. It may not make you happier in the moment, but it will make you love what you think you have even more.
