Hello, Mirror readers, and welcome to fall term!
I’m sure glad to be back. After spending only one of the past four terms on campus, I finally have time for some stability — even as we ’25s take in the bittersweet moments of our final year on campus.
Fall is maybe my favorite season in Hanover; the novelty of autumn has yet to wear off after a childhood in no-seasons Florida. I’ve only been back in New England for a little over a week, and it’s already been a cinnamon-spiced haze of autumn activities: I’ve been to a Massachusetts Oktoberfest party, enjoyed cider donuts, lost myself in a corn maze, eaten my favorite farmer’s market grilled cheese and felt really old seeing the ’28s — a number which doesn’t even sound real to me — having their candlelight ceremony.
Yes, it’s a bit surreal to be a member of Dartmouth’s current oldest class, and even more so when my classmates referred to this Monday as our “LFDOC” — last first day of classes. I’ll be clinging to my winter and spring term “LFDOCs,” thanks.
After that milestone, I made a trip with friends to the Upper Valley’s premier destination, the West Lebanon McDonald’s. Sitting in the drive-thru, my friend commented that we should all really “buy in” this year. In other words, he was encouraging us to all enter our senior year with renewed excitement for everything to come.
Perhaps, for some of us “jaded seniors,” there’s a tendency to scoff at those Dartmouth traditions we embraced unabashedly our freshman year — the march to “Fayesment” parties, cramming into the KDE basement for “Tackiez” and mobbing the Green for Fallapalooza. The list goes on. Okay, so maybe we’re better off not repeating some traditions, but there are still plenty for us to eagerly participate in.
Maybe there are some traditions that we have yet to take part in. I’ve never gone to an orchard to pick apples, and even though I am a horrible skier, I plan to Pond Skim this year. I also know I have a couple of friends that I’ll be coercing into doing the polar plunge with me sometime this winter.
Regardless of how enthusiastic you’ve been about the Dartmouth experience so far, I’m imploring all of you readers — but especially my fellow ’25s — to welcome with open arms everything that Dartmouth has to offer. There are only so many “last firsts” left.
Buying in, committing to the bit, lest the old traditions fail … whatever you want to call it. Fall is a new beginning, an opportunity to devote yourself to cherishing every moment. With the leaves starting to change and the air starting to chill, autumn is a special time at Dartmouth — and I, for one, can’t wait to enjoy all of it.
This week at the Mirror, we skip around Hanover, looking at students who work jobs in town, those who experience Dartmouth at the crack of dawn and the professors who advise undergraduate theses.
Welcome to Week One, Mirror. Let’s make this term count.
