Cheng: Ticking the Box
(09/22/17 4:30am)
What were your first memories of Dartmouth?
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What were your first memories of Dartmouth?
There is a common saying often heard by husbands: “Happy wife, happy life.” This saying also holds true in the primary and secondary education system: If teachers are happy with their work life, both the administration and the student body will be more likely to thrive. State and local governments currently have too much jurisdiction over education curriculum, which may be contributing to the lack of quality teachers across the United States.
Like many Dartmouth students, I went through a transitional process from high school hopeful to nervous college student last fall, a shift that involved a great deal of uncertainty and doubt. As Eliza Jane Schaeffer ’20 astutely observed in her Sept. 13 article on adjusting to Dartmouth life, “The College on the (Northeastern) Hill,” ordering Collis pasta is quite the feat for a first-year. In that same article, Schaeffer pointed out the unique challenges Southerners face on Dartmouth’s campus, where they are heavily outnumbered.
Earlier this year, I published my first column in The Dartmouth, “Consumerist Masturbation,” in which I identified consumerism as seen in Kevin Spacey’s hit movie, “American Beauty.” Though it was released in 1999, the film’s satirical take on consumerism remains a relevant criticism of American society. Lester Burnham (Spacey) leads a miserable life: He has a strained relationship with his wife and daughter, a monotonous job that offers no corporate advancement and an unquantifiable amount of regret and unrealized potential. But the screenwriter’s focus is on the material that, by conventional measures, show his social rank: his two-story house surrounded by a literal white picket fence and a Mercedes SUV.
Many Southerners remain confused about the Civil War, its origins and the implications it bore for the Confederate States. Harvard professor John Stauffer reported in a 2011 Harvard Gazette article that nearly 70 percent of white Southerners believe that states’ rights were the underlying cause of the war, while slavery was only a secondary cause.
Today, the town of Hanover will have its annual ballot to vote on new zoning articles and town officers. Potential new laws are of special interest to the Dartmouth community. This year, Hanover’s town meeting is acutely relevant to the College, thanks to one high-stakes petition article.
Depression is a serious issue among college students. It is one we often discuss but rarely act to resolve. Because we cannot assume that students with depression will reach out for help, we may not react in time to help a student in need. May is Mental Health Awareness month, and I believe it’s up to students — and not just College programs — to take action to end depression rather than waste time discussing it.
Dispelling the myths surrounding the term “political correctness” requires me to make both a concession and a confession before addressing the article’s central thesis.
Dartmouth is a strange place. We could politely call the College “unique” or “exceptional,” but positive connotations would discourage any self-reflection on the strangeness of the place we inhabit. It should be obvious to anyone in the Dartmouth community that students, faculty and alumni have a special intimacy with the College rarely seen outside our borders.
While avoiding writing this article, I began to clean out my room. It started when I saw an engorged duffel bag oozing under my bed and decided to investigate its long-forgotten contents.
I was recently informed that I’m no longer a millennial. The inexact art that is generational studies has apparently rechristened those born from 1995 to 2012 from the ever-aging “Millennial” generation to a new, vastly different “Generation Z.”
While finishing problem sets at a dimly lit desk around 1 a.m. this past Thursday, a phone notification called to me the arrival of a fresh batch of news from Vox Daily. Scrolling through the typical quotes and announcements, I noticed that the outspoken “brother” — as he affectionately calls everyone — Cornel West will be visiting campus on April 27 to deliver a lecture on the importance of the humanities in the President Donald Trump era.
I never imagined that I’d write a column in defense of kindness, especially in defense of appreciating small acts of kindness within the hyper-competitive, résumé-driven rat race of college admissions. I was dismayed after reading the April 12 piece by my colleague, Dorothy Qu ’19, that criticizes the New York Times op-ed “Check This Box if You’re a Good Person,” written by former Dartmouth admissions director Rebecca Sabky.
The experience of returning to Dartmouth as a junior is somewhat jarring. Most ’18s have realized, hopefully, that we will be leaving soon, and many will have gotten a taste of what will come next — probably through an internship where they brushed up against the previously inviolable Adult World. Part of what makes this experience more poignant than past work is the understanding that college will end soon.
The end of this spring term will mark the first year of Moving Dartmouth Forward’s full implementation on campus. Despite the establishment of flagship policies such as the budding housing system and the hard alcohol ban, students seem to have adapted when MDF affects us and forgotten its existence when it does not.
It was 4 a.m., and I was in the Digital Arts, Leadership and Innovation Lab when I again found myself in what I’ve dubbed “the limbo.” I had a 10A and a 2A, an application for an internship to submit at midnight, a presentation to put together, tasks to do for my job, a column to write, homework to catch up on and of course, sleep. The magnitude of the amount of work I had to do paralyzed me — instead of making a decision about which task I would tackle next (or not), I sat on the couch and gave in to a feeling of complete helplessness.
On Sept. 11, 2001, two jets originating from Logan International Airport in Boston flew into the World Trade Center towers. Though many initially believed the first crash was accidental, these were confirmed to be terrorist attacks when the second plane flew into the South Tower 17 minutes later. Within the next two hours, two more planes were hijacked by members of al-Qaeda — one struck the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. and the other, allegedly targeting the White House or the U.S. Capitol, crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania after passengers attempted to combat the hijackers. The four attacks were carried out by 19 terrorists.
I have been a conservative since I formed my political views and values early in my secondary school years. To be clear, the word conservatism is defined as the “disposition to preserve or restore what is established and traditional and to limit change.” Admittedly, there are a variety of unrestrictive factions within and interpretations of political conservatism, just as there are of any theory or ideology. These include, but are not limited to, Christian conservatism, paleoconservatism, neoconservatism, libertarian conservatism and moderate conservatism. Personally, my beliefs and values overlap among these groups, aligning with a strong conservative social and fiscal vision while aligning with neoconservatives on foreign policy issues.
I was only 3 years old that day. I was at home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, watching cartoons. An abrupt, loud, repeating noise silenced my show with letters racing across the screen. It said “Emergency” in bold red colors. The screen switched to a news announcement of some sort. That was the first glimpse I had of the twin towers, black smoke covering the tips of the screen. Being an innocent 3 year old, I assumed it was part of the program. At the time, I only knew that Sept. 11 was supposed to be a happy day, but my mother’s birthday had to take the back seat to a large scale terrorist attack.
Every year, Dartmouth accepts a few dozen transfer students. This number usually hovers around 30 to 40 among a pool of approximately 700 applicants. The transfer students come from a vast array of backgrounds, from veterans to varsity athletes. As expected, many of the transfer students come in on a credit deficit, because Dartmouth does not always accept every credit the student has to offer. This can cause transfer students to fall behind, and Dartmouth’s restrictions and protocols only make the situation increasingly difficult for those students.
