This week marks the middle of my “H-Term.” For those who aren’t in on the lingo, an H-Term (or Hanover term) is when a Dartmouth student takes an off-term but stays in Hanover. I’ve been trying out writing full time while simultaneously taking care of other campus responsibilities. This experiment has taught me a lot about myself and my independent work habits, but beyond that, and more interesting to readers of my column, it has allowed me to take a step back from a busy class schedule and observe the reproduction of the Dartmouth student’s learning power.
What do I mean by “reproduction of learning power?” Simply put, the things that Dartmouth students need to do to sustain their lives and make sure they are ready to go back to class and learn every day. Dartmouth students belong to a unique group of people who, for the most part, have many of their reproductive needs taken care of by others.
The first and most obvious example of this is food. Over the course of my off term, I have had the luxury of going off the meal plan and cooking for myself. It saves me immense amounts of money and means that I get to eat better quality food, although I’ll admit that I’m not sure if it’s something I’d have the time for if I was taking classes. There is an expression of values in this truth though. Why would someone pay more money for lower quality food? For a Dartmouth student fully immersed in classes, time is the ultimate luxury. Having pre-made food at their disposal saves the Dartmouth student both cooking time and the mental effort required to plan and create meals. Ultimately, the time saved that could be dedicated to other pursuits is more valuable than having a meal that tastes better, or that might be better for you.
The second example of this reproductive outsourcing is cleaning. The shared spaces in dorms are cleaned by custodians, and some Dartmouth students pay for an outside laundry service to pick up their laundry and deliver it fully completed. I myself am a beneficiary of these systems –– my fraternity pays for a cleaning service to come through periodically to clean our shared spaces.
Why are either of these examples interesting, or even remotely important? It is symptomatic of what Dartmouth is preparing its graduates for. If a student lives in campus housing, they are required to buy a meal plan, and their cleaning is taken care of by custodians. In its policies and services, Dartmouth tells us that it is preparing a class of graduates who are disaggregated from their food and the wellbeing of collective property, essentially individual pods made primarily to maximize their utils in the form of productive time for studying, looking for a job and making the most of their “Dartmouth career.” A group of people that prize the commodity of time over almost everything else.
If time at Dartmouth is so important, how do students use their free time? In this question lies one of the richest ironies of Dartmouth life. Many of us spend inordinate amounts of time on our cellphones, consuming content on social media sites. Many of the most prominent social spaces on campus are marked by high risk drinking and sexual behavior. If the time of Dartmouth students is so important, then why do we spend so much of our free time on such mindless activities?
This lifestyle that I’m describing –– the endless grind alternating with intermittent periods of mindlessness –– roughly maps onto the “work hard, play hard” mantra that many use to describe the world of a Dartmouth student. Interestingly, this mantra also applies to the investment banking and consulting careers that many Dartmouth students decide to pursue. It would be painfully ironic if I didn’t admit that I am myself an active participant in this cycle while taking classes. Now that I’ve had five weeks outside of it though, I’ve had the opportunity to do what many Dartmouth students do not have the privilege of doing; inhabiting time without an agenda to optimize and thinking about my lifestyle. I have explored the elusive liminal space between Dartmouth work and Dartmouth play, and I’ve found that it’s really quite enjoyable.
So, what to do? I urge any students who are reading this to take an inordinate amount of time to cook a meal for yourself, read a book for personal enjoyment, clean your dorm’s common room, talk to one of your friends for way too long while doing homework, stare at the wall silently for a while or do anything else that might seem like a waste of time that you could be using to maximize your utils. In your free time, take a break from social media and drinking and think. Is the life of optimized time I’m being taught to live at Dartmouth really one that I’ll love?
Opinion articles represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.
Eli Moyse ’27 is an opinion editor and columnist for The Dartmouth. He studies government and creative writing. He publishes various personal work under a pen name on Substack (https://substack.com/@wesmercer), and you can find his other work in various publications.
