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Many students come to college ready to reinvent themselves. Whether it’s new interests, new style or a completely new personality, it’s easy to see this chapter of our lives as a chance for a complete rebrand.
“Be Extraordinary Here,” demands the homepage of the Dartmouth website. These words sit in the bottom left corner of the page, over a reel of students partaking in various campus activities and occupying all sorts of academic spaces. From working in labs to sketching portraits in BVAC or playing classical instruments in Faulkner recital hall, Dartmouth students do it all.
From where to eat to where to party, Dartmouth students have lots of choices to make. When you throw something away, three choices emerge: trash, recycle or compost. Although this is usually a split-second decision, the reliability of recycling on campus is hotly debated. Where do Collis smoothies go when we’re done with them? Does Dartmouth even recycle?
As I walk by Dartmouth’s beloved Green, it is not just the early October foliage that is verdant with color, but the people. Somehow, they are enough to bring the brittle fall leaves to life.
On my First-Year Hiking Trip this fall, my group was happily surprised by the visit of Bernie Waugh ’74. Waugh has been playing fiddle for lucky First-Year Trip students for forty years, starting 10 years after he graduated. He came to our cabin and asked us if we would like it if he played the fiddle and guitar for us, even providing us with “Bernie Waugh Songbooks” so we could sing along as we listened to him play or dance the Salty Dog Rag. He is a representation of what the Dartmouth community is like at its best: fun, tight-knit and long-lasting. After decades of proximity to and perspective on the Dartmouth community, Bernie had a lot to say on what the College means to him today.
Growing up in New Zealand, “college” was something that happened on TV. College was where the protagonist went after solving mysteries in a small Indiana town or before getting hired by Monsters Inc. Students cavorted in Hellenic mystery cults, pretended to enjoy playing sports and got into fights with rival a capella groups. Coming to Dartmouth was a dramatic change for those of us who are from a different part of the world.
Private prep schools seem to be the key to success when it comes to getting into an elite college like Dartmouth. After all, 34% of Dartmouth’s Class of 2025 went to “Independent Schools” while only 14% of U.S. high schoolers attend such institutions. What about private school applicants makes them so desirable to Ivy+ colleges and universities? Is it that these students are smarter, more athletic or more interesting? No. It’s the delicious scent of money wafting from these candidates that keep elite colleges feeding from a handful of high-level prep schools.
Somehow it’s week five already, and for the most part, it’s kind of nice. It feels like we’re finally in the swing of things, finally getting a chance to stop, take a breath and settle into the term. As we pass the halfway mark, though, there’s also a hint of bittersweetness in the crisp fall air. The last lasts are beginning, and every leaf that falls is a sign of time’s ceaseless march forward.
I wouldn’t rush if I went to a different school. I’m not ranking sororities off social clout. I’ll be happy wherever I end up. I’m not giving power to a system built on making girls feel bad about themselves. These are some of the many lies, or half-truths, I coaxed myself into believing during the rush process.
Given the size of our community and the College’s centuries of history, Dartmouth culture is rife with expectations for “traditional” rites of passage. There are different rules for every term: Sophomore summer is notoriously a two-course term for many, while winter term is for hunkering down because the opportunity cost of staying inside during daylight hours isn’t too high.
This weekend, as the leaves started to shift into brilliant reds and oranges, thousands of parents and loved ones descended on Hanover to reunite with family members from the Classes of 2023 and 2026. We connected with a few of the visiting parents to gauge the important — and sometimes invisible — role parents play in our college community.
At the start of the term, the trees of Hanover kept the coming season a secret. Standing tall, green and proud well into September, only the dip in temperature hinted at what this autumn had in store. Now it’s the first week of October and everything looks different. Orange, red and yellow leaves wink at us as we make our way across the Green — the same leaves that were here all year, now demanding our attention.
I love you.
Left Bank Books is a bookstore for romantics. Named in homage to the bouquinistes of Paris, the shop epitomizes the beauty and adventure of secondhand book culture. Students might come to Left Bank Books for its immaculate selection of curated literature, but we stay for the whimsical atmosphere and excellent customer service. From a floral tea set, stashed between crochet gloves and an antique copy of Babar’s Visit to Bird Island, to a vintage anthology of T.S. Eliot poems, Left Bank Books is filled to the brim with hidden treasures and conversation starters.
It’s been a really hard week. For many, the grief permeating campus is unsettling and saddenning, but feels just a little bit removed. For many others, it’s as still fresh, as raw and as unrelentingly painful as it was when our email inboxes first chimed with news of our classmates’ deaths. Feelings like these are complicated.
What are you most looking forward to this fall?
Most kids start their career aspirations imaginatively: They dream of being an astronaut, or of starring in a blockbuster movie when they grow up. Jake Lotreck ’25, however, had a different dream from the start. Exposed to finance from an early age, he always wanted to be an actuary.
I smoked my first cigarette when I was 17. The week before, I had been hired at a pseudo-hipster falafel and kabob restaurant, where I had instantly fallen in love with my punk, college-dropout coworker who took smoke breaks about every other hour. Naturally, I asked one of my friends to “teach” me how to smoke, so I wouldn’t make a fool of myself if my coworker ever asked me if I wanted a cigarette.
It’s been a rainy week in Hanover. But while we’ve been stepping around puddles while dashing to class and thinking about how heavy our backpacks are for the second week of term, we’ve also been taking a moment to notice that the Green looks a little greener.
For the past few days, students may have noticed a sign-wielding man outside of Foco and on the Green asking passerbys an unusual query: “Working on eye contact, please stare at me.” The man with the sign, otherwise known as Ryan Alu, is a masters student in computer science at the College. Alu took a gap year and worked as a math teacher before starting his stint at Dartmouth last fall. Since then, he has been on a quest to better himself — and the Hanover community has taken note. The Dartmouth sat down with Alu to discuss the man behind the sign and his personal development journey.
