Lately, I’ve been feeling like a broken record. Whenever anyone asks me how my term is going, the first thing I can think to say is, “It’s flying by.”
Granted, this has been my typical response to that question for the past three years. The D-plan has a way of making 10 weeks feel like two. However, those three words have never felt more truthful. I don’t think I truly understood what it meant to be a Dartmouth ’26 until winter term classes were released, and I had to scroll down to “Winter Term 2026” to see my schedule.
The year that had been so far in the future for so long — the year I never thought would ever actually come, the year I’ll graduate college and officially enter adulthood — was now here.
Almost every move I made in high school was a step toward the ultimate goal of getting into the best college I could. For some reason, I was convinced that the rest of my life would fall into place if I could just accomplish that one thing. So, I put my head down and did everything I possibly could to achieve that goal. I often felt as though I was missing out on the carefree experience of adolescence that you see in movies, but that it was okay because I would get to experience it once I got to college. When I was accepted to Dartmouth, I felt as though I could finally breathe. All my hard work had paid off, and it would be smooth sailing from there.
Oh, to be young and naive.
Despite the fact that I spent the summer before freshman year combing through the course catalog and student testimonials, daydreaming about the experience I was going to create for myself at Dartmouth, I was in no rush to get involved right away when I arrived on campus. This was my time to slow down, take some pressure off of myself and gradually figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. College was going to be the best four years of my life.
The thing about going to one of the best colleges in the world is that you’re constantly surrounded by some of the best people in the world. In that kind of setting, competition is inevitable. This reality became incredibly clear to me when I attended the club fair during O-week and discovered that almost every club I was interested in required an application. My new mindset of taking it slow and blowing off some of the steam I had pent up from high school meant that I had no desire to fill out those applications. I would spend the fall getting settled and focusing on my classes, I told myself. The extracurriculars could wait.
So I waited, and that winter, I applied to The Dartmouth’s business development team. I had written for my high school newspaper, and while I was interested in editorial, I wanted to try something new. So I joined the business team, met new people and worked on some really cool projects. I remained intrigued by the editorial side, though. As I endured the inevitable highs and lows of freshman year of college, my mom often forwarded me Mirror articles that touched on loneliness, overthinking and other things I called her crying about. These stories reminded me that I wasn’t the only Dartmouth student who had ever had a bad day. If I ever switched to editorial, I told myself I wanted to write for Mirror.
Over the next couple of years, every time I had the opportunity to make the switch, I came up with an excuse not to: I would finish out the year with business development and then make the switch if I still wanted to; or, we were about to start a new project that I wanted to be a part of; or, I didn’t want to leave the group of people I had met on business development.
I repeated this pattern many times in other areas of my Dartmouth experience, too.
At the end of freshman year, when I had the chance to apply to be a Trip Leader, I said it “wasn’t my thing.” Then I saw how much fun all my friends had and decided to apply the following year. I was rejected. I applied again the year after that and was rejected again. I never got to be a Trip Leader.
I loved being an admissions tour guide in high school, but for some reason I can’t even remember, I chose not to apply freshman year. I came to my senses the next year and applied as a sophomore, the last year you can apply, and I got rejected. I never got to be a tour guide.
I went to various Women in Business club meetings freshman year but didn’t apply for a leadership position when I had the chance because I didn’t want to add too much to my plate too quickly. I slowly stopped attending meetings when they became repetitive, but when it came time to apply for internships, I found myself complaining about the lack of leadership experience on my resume.
There were so many things I wanted to do coming into Dartmouth. While I applaud my freshman year self for allowing herself to slow down a little, in retrospect, I wish she had had a greater sense of urgency. Writing this reflection, I have scrapped many paragraphs because I don’t want to make myself sound lazy. But if I’m being honest with myself, the reason I hesitated so much was because I was afraid to fail. I was used to feeling fully prepared before trying something to maximize my chances of success, but the fast-paced Dartmouth terms didn’t slow down enough for me to ever feel that way. Time really got away from me.
Finally, at the end of junior year, I made the executive decision that I was going to force myself to switch from business to editorial for senior year. I had already spent far too much time thinking about it, and I knew I would regret it if I graduated before ever writing for The Dartmouth. So here I am, baring my soul in my fourth-ever Mirror article.
I seem to be just realizing it now, but if Dartmouth has taught me anything, it’s that no matter how hard I might try, I can’t make time to slow down. I could hesitate forever, and the perfect moment to take that risk or make that change or talk to that person might never come. All I would be left with is regret and the unknowable reality of what’s on the other side of fear. I wish I could make freshman year me understand that.
A few years ago, someone told me in reference to the Dartmouth experience, “The days are long, but the weeks are short.” To any underclassmen reading this, I hope you take those words to heart more than I did. Time really does fly, so don’t wait until senior year to make your Dartmouth dreams come true.
