This article is featured in the 2024 Freshman special issue.
To graduate from Dartmouth, students must complete three “World Culture” courses, 10 distributive requirements, one introductory writing course, one first-year seminar and at least one course to fulfill the foreign language requirement. While the College’s curriculum may seem daunting to incoming freshmen, the Dartmouth timetable, an online registry of class offerings, offers unique ways to tackle the list — even when it comes to “ART,” a sometimes worrying distributive for less-than-artistic students. While some students opt for a more traditional arts class — grabbing a camera or paint brush — others chart a more unique path.
From public speaking to history to engineering, even Dartmouth’s less creative-oriented students can, well, creatively navigate the distributive. The Dartmouth spoke to four students about the requirement — and the unconventional paths they took to fulfill it.
For Abby Anthes ’26, an electrical engineering and material science major, the art distributive took a backseat to her major coursework. Like many other STEM majors, Anthes struggled to find time to fit the distributive into her engineering-heavy course schedule.
“Distribs haven’t really been a priority for me,” Anthes said. “I would say my priority is more getting my pre-reqs out of the way and then taking major classes.”
This summer, however, Anthes enrolled in WGSS 65.06, “Radical Sexuality: Of Color, Wildness and Fabulosity” — a course that examines the intersections of sexuality, culture and art. While Anthes said she initially registered “solely for the distribs and the time slot,” she ultimately enjoyed the course.
“It’s definitely been an interesting class,” Anthes said. “The professor has a lot to talk about, and she is well informed on the subject.”
Anthes added that the class struck her as somewhat atypical for an art distributive because it is not in a department she would “typically associate with the subject of art.” Anthes had imagined fulfilling the requirement in a more traditional department — such as art history, film, music or studio art — but ultimately chose “Radical Sexuality” because it worked with her summer schedule.
Anthes said she appreciated the College’s flexibility in completing distributive requirements. Some classes are able to satisfy multiple requirements at once, which can make scheduling easier. In Anthes’s case, she was able to fulfill a world culture requirement and the art distributive with a single class, decreasing her total number of required classes left to complete.
While Anthes moved away from the Thayer School of Engineering for her art distributive, Lauren Heller ’26 did the opposite, enrolling in ENGS 11, “The Way Things Work.” As an environmental studies and economics double major, Heller does not consider herself artistic but found the course to be a good way to get the credit.
“I was initially drawn to [the course] because I saw [the course name], and I remembered the children’s book that was called ‘The Way Things Work,’” she said. “Then I realized that the professor is the same person that wrote that book that I grew up reading. His name is David Macaulay and he is a world renowned artist.”
In Macaulay’s class, students use art and drawing to understand how everyday systems work, Heller said. In one class project, Heller said students chose a mechanical instrument — such as scissors or a pizza cutter — took it apart to figure out how it worked and then drew those mechanisms.
“It’s not like anything I have ever done in a class before,” Heller said. “It’s a good balance for something that is not too hard on the brain but also uses my creative juices.”
Heller added that her drawing skills improved with Macaulay’s help.
“I think it’s really great that I got to [fulfill my art distributive] like this, especially because [Macaulay] is such an influential artist and is so willing to help us with all of our drawings all of the time,” she said.
As a quantitative social science and geography double major, Daniel Xu ’25 “didn’t really struggle” to fulfill his distributive requirements. He did, however, complete the art requirement through what he called a “more abstract” art class: Film 46.07, “TV and New Media.”
According to Xu, the class deals with the themes of “mass media, YouTube, participatory culture, social networks and mobile communications.” He said he found the course’s thematic focus unconventional for an art class.
“For the majority of the class, you aren’t making anything, if that makes sense,” Xu said. “It’s not pen and paper. You aren’t producing art. You’re learning about abstract ideas and movements to showcase cultures and the effects of those aesthetics.”
Like Xu, Ella Klinsky ’26 did not struggle to fulfill her graduation requirements. Klinsky, who is majoring in government modified with economics and minoring in Spanish — while also on the pre-medicine track — said her varied coursework has allowed her to fulfill distributive requirements “pretty naturally.” While not an art major, she nonetheless managed to integrate her academic interests into the requirement.
For her art distributive, Klinsky took SPAN 22, “Modern and Contemporary Spanish Artistic and Cultural Production” while on a language study abroad in Barcelona in the winter of 2024. Through the course, Klinsky said she learned about the ways that art and literature “dictated cultural movements in Spain.”
“It’s going to my minor, and it did enhance my language ability in tandem with learning more about art and the role art plays in government movements,” she said.
Among her assignments, Klinsky said she watched Spanish television shows such as “Cable Girls” with her host family and analyzed primary texts from Spanish history. She added that the class provided many connections to her other coursework abroad — which she felt enhanced her immersion into the language and culture.
“It was really cool because I was also taking a Spanish literature class that was also speaking on a lot of poetry in this area,” Klinsky said. “So, seeing the tandem of understanding the art and understanding the implications to wider Spanish history was really cool.”
Whether taking an engineering course that combines mechanics and art, a gender studies course that examines cultural critiques or an immersive option while studying abroad, there are many ways students can complete the “ART” requirement — even outside conventionally creative departments. These are just a few of the many ways Dartmouth students are able to take courses that suit their interests while still fulfilling the distributive requirements characteristic of a liberal arts education.
