Breaching the Dartmouth Bubble: Reflecting on Era-Defining Moments of Commencements Past
(06/12/21 8:20am)
This article is featured in the 2021 Commencement special issue.
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This article is featured in the 2021 Commencement special issue.
I wake up to pitch darkness with a slight headache. My fingers gingerly feel around the bedside table until they land on that oh-so-familiar silicone phone case. 12 p.m. Looks like I’ve missed my Zoom class, but I’ll be able to watch the recording later, so who cares? I scroll through Instagram, nap a little, eat a little, say hi to a friend or two — and then the day is gone. And somehow I’m surprised every time the sunlight slips through my hands.
On a morning in early February of this year, I walked into Baker Library at 9:17 a.m. I entered from the west, and I paused to take in the scene. Checkered tiles receded hypnotically into space; low winter sun slanted in from the windows. Blobby was quiet, serene. I hadn’t been inside any of Dartmouth’s libraries since sophomore summer, and suddenly, I had my favorite study spot all to myself. I experienced such intense joy, coupled with such poignant grief, at returning to a place I had loved throughout my first two years at Dartmouth, that I immediately stored the memory of that moment as a quasi-religious experience.
My life as a college student was dead, to begin with, to paraphrase one of my favorite opening lines from Charles Dickens. While the time of death of the last time I felt like a college student is a little more vague than Marley’s in “A Christmas Carol,” the fact is just as certain.
The pandemic has affected students of all ages in different ways. Although it's easy to claim that one Class had it worse than another, we have all had our college experiences irreversibly altered. And for the Class of 2021, they will be graduating from Dartmouth in just a few weeks following over a year of largely remote learning.
Consultant (n.): a person who provides expert advice professionally.
Gap years, graduating late, switching around our D plans: My friends and I have all thrown around these ideas casually since COVID-19 altered the college experience. What once seemed like a neat and orderly four-year timeline has since become far more individual, ad-hoc and ever-changing. More interesting, though, is the way that this situation has impacted the senior class. In order to make the most of their remaining time and personal goals, some seniors have decided to take the leap of faith and graduate late.
Over the course of my four years at Dartmouth, I’ve met many extraordinary people, taken fantastic classes, studied abroad twice, met then-presidential candidate Joe Biden here in Hanover and grown enormously as a scholar and human being. Most of my experiences have been tremendously positive. But my most notable negative experience ultimately made me into a much more resilient individual, even though I would not wish it on anyone else.
Now that we are a mere five months and five days away from Halloween — not that anyone’s counting — I think it’s only appropriate that we delve into Dartmouth’s storied paranormal past. Dartmouth has a long history of mysterious deaths and spooky occurrences, which have resulted in a number of ghostly reports over the years.
I think we can all agree that this week has been an exceptionally hard one for Dartmouth. In a year that has been filled with ups and downs, this moment in time feels especially low. As our community continues to grieve, we hope that this week’s issue provides a little bit of everything, from reflection to distraction.
This article is featured in the 2021 Spring special issue.
This article is featured in the 2021 Spring special issue.
This article is featured in the 2021 Spring special issue.
Throughout its history, the College has been embroiled in a series of scandals that have received national news coverage. While this coverage started out as lighthearted stories regarding athletics and Winter Carnival, in recent years, serious stories — from Greek life fraternity hazing to anti-Semitism to sexual assault settlements to online cheating controversies — have gained media attention.
There’s an “L” in my D-Plan for this term, spring 2021, and it stands for “Leave.” The minutiae of Dartmouth’s oft-cursed, occasionally lauded D-Plan and the inclusion of a mandatory, on-campus enrollment for sophomore summer means that undergraduates can flexibly choose a leave term. The L is described on the “D-Plan'' section of the Dartmouth Admissions website like so:
For the first time, Dartmouth’s sacred tradition of “sophomore summer” won’t entirely live up to its name, as members of the Class of 2022 will be joining the Class of 2023 on campus.
“You’re still concussed?” Yes, still. If you had told me four months ago that I would still be dealing with a concussion — well, I would have preferred that you didn’t tell me. Concussions, also referred to as traumatic brain injuries — or TBIs — affect millions of Americans annually and are certainly no stranger to college students. Varsity athletes and even their NARP counterparts are at risk; a slip playing pong in a frat basement or a fall on the Dartmouth Skiway — as in my case — can all land a Dartmouth student in the same place: concussed.
Let’s be honest — who doesn’t love some good, old-fashioned gossip? And at a small school like Dartmouth, stories spread like wildfire. As information circulates and evolves from one gossiper to the next, it’s hard to tell which fables are false and if there’s any truth in the rumors.
As the number of people vaccinated continues to rise across the country, the College has released a new “Vaccine Data Reported” section on the COVID-19 dashboard tracking the number of students, faculty and staff that have been vaccinated. This section, added in early May, marks a new stage in the COVID-19 dashboard’s evolution, which members of the community rely on to gauge the College’s success in responding to the virus.
Those who’ve been through drill know that you never forget the feeling of sitting, clammy-handed, in a room with five to eight of your classmates, furiously racking your brain for a verb tense that was just on the tip of your tongue. Drill, otherwise known as the Rassias method, is an essential organ of Dartmouth’s language program.
