Mirror

Editors' Note

By Sarah Alpert and Novi Zhukovsky | November 5, 2020

It’s week eight. But more importantly, it’s the week of the election. And, well, that’s as much as we can say. Without a clear winner called at the time we write this, as ballots continue to be tallied and the prospect of recounts loom, the U.S. is trapped in a twilight zone. Whether you’ve been obsessively following election coverage since Tuesday morning or occasionally checking your phone for breaking news updates, we’re all feeling the stress of being in a state of limbo. Is it time to cry? Should we pop the champagne? Do we even know? When will we know?

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Mirror

What’s a ’23 To Do? Making Decisions About Winter Term

By Mia Seymour | October 28, 2020

I remember finishing my work shift in late July and pulling out my phone to see 235 unread messages. I braced myself for what I already knew: term assignments had come out. Everything I had speculated about sophomore year would change once I opened my email from the Registrar. Disbelief struck when I read that I had been approved for only one term, summer.  

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Here Today and Gone Tomorrow: Students React to Classmates Being Sent Home

By Caroline Kramer | October 28, 2020

As we approach Halloween here at Dartmouth, there’s a heightened level of fear across the student body. This fear, however, is not caused by your typical horror film or haunted house. Rather, it is the result of a steady stream of unknowns, distrust and paranoia surrounding one of the most concerning trends of fall term: students being forced to leave campus for the remainder of the academic year due to COVID-19 policy violations. 

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Mirror

From the Other Side (of the Globe)

By Jea Mo | October 28, 2020

For international ’24s, dealing with time zone differences, worrying about getting to know people over a screen and struggling to make club meetings were certainly unexpected occurrences this fall. I, for one, never pictured myself dealing with a 13-hour time difference and attending office hours at four in the morning while taking classes in Seoul, South Korea.

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Mirror

Stuck Inside: Winter During a Pandemic

By Ellie Rudnick | October 28, 2020

You don’t have to be at Dartmouth long to hear about how dismal winter term can be. However, after growing up in Maine and coming off an amazing first term, I did not believe I would succumb to the winter slump myself when I was on campus last year. But as my boots filled with snow as I trekked across the Green, I began to understand what upperclassmen meant when they criticized winters at Dartmouth.

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Mirror

Missing the Little Things … Like Little KAF

By Kate Yuan | October 28, 2020

King Arthur Flour’s Baker-Berry Library location — known to students as little KAF — has been closed for five months, and I’ve yet to successfully recreate their maple latte or spinach quiche. It might have something to do with my culinary skills, but maybe it just doesn’t taste the same without the delayed gratification of a 30-minute wait in line and the weight of an impending assignment on my shoulders. 

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Mirror

Marriage Story: Dartmouth Edition

By Solenne Wolfe | October 28, 2020

Ask any Dartmouth student about their most pressing concerns and you’re unlikely to hear that they’re stressing about finding their soulmate. The terms go by quickly and it’s hard enough to keep up with the whirlwind of club meetings, lunch dates and assignments. Though the object of marriage is not on the radar for most, there’s a certain phenomenon of Dartmouth students marrying other Dartmouth students. Although there aren’t statistics to back up the rumors, ask any student on campus about it and they’re likely to know what you’re talking about. 

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Mirror

Editors' Note

By Sarah Alpert and Novi Zhukovsky | October 28, 2020

They call October “spooky season,” and this year, it’s not hard to see why. Dartmouth students are nearing the end of our third term since COVID-19 began. Finals are approaching, and exams and essays are always spooky. Next week, Americans will head to the polls to determine the trajectory of our nation, and many students can only hope their absentee ballots get counted. Spooky. And of course, Halloween is right around the corner, but can any costume be spookier than the masks we’ve been wearing for months?

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Dating Apps, Zoom and GroupMe: Dartmouth’s New Social Culture

By Manasi Singh | October 21, 2020

Despite restrictions on social interactions, Dartmouth students are finding new ways to connect this term. Some are sticking with more familiar ways of meeting new people, but others are making the most of any and all online platforms to connect with others during a socially distanced time.

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Lest the (Virtual) Traditions Fail

By Caroline Kramer | October 21, 2020

You can hear it in the lingo-packed conversations on the Green, see it on the faces of students as they marvel at Hanover’s fall colors and read it in the words of adoration from alumni: Dartmouth is home to a uniquely tight-knit community, the closeness of which stems largely from years of tradition.

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Comfort in the Unexpected: ’24s Meet the ‘Sun God’

By Arielle Feuerstein | October 21, 2020

I thought I knew exactly what to expect from my freshman fall. I had meticulously read the COVID-19 regulations, researched campus culture and tempered my idealistic visions into a pretty realistic picture of how the term would materialize. But Dartmouth has a way of throwing surprises at us. I hadn’t expected midnight CVS runs to be so crucial to my survival, nor to find such sheer joy in eating maple-flavored cotton candy. 

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Offline Learning: The Slow Return to In-Person Classes

By Brian Zheng | October 21, 2020

Like most Dartmouth freshmen before this quarter, Jeffrey Lam ’24 had not set foot in an actual classroom since March, when he was midway through the second semester of his senior year in high school. For the vast majority of Dartmouth students, that fact has remained unchanged well into the fall quarter: Of the 885 classes being offered this term, the vast majority of them — around 770 — are completely virtual, a decision prompted by the College’s strict COVID-19 rules.

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‘The Way of the Future’: A Cashless Society

By Jaymie Wei | October 21, 2020

As consumers shift to digital forms of payment like credit cards and mobile banking, cash has dwindled from our day-to-day transactions. Like other trends, the COVID-19 pandemic seems to be accelerating the transition from a cash-based to a cashless society.

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Hiking Gile: Climbing to Community?

By Tabitha Klein | October 21, 2020

Based on Instagram alone, it would seem like there’s not a person on campus who hasn’t been to Gile Mountain this term. Scrolling through all the pictures of Dartmouth students smiling at the top of the fire tower takes almost as long as climbing the mountain itself.

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Editors' Note

By Sarah Alpert and Novi Zhukovsky | October 21, 2020

The election is coming up, midterms are in full swing, the new season of “The Bachelorette” has started — oh, and it’s week six. At times it feels like the term is flying by, whether that means realizing we’re past the halfway mark and your professor still doesn’t know your name, or coming to terms with the fact that you’re never actually going to “catch up” on lost sleep. 

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Countdown to November: Student Groups Get Out The Vote

By Elsa Ericksen | October 14, 2020

It’s fall in Hanover, and that can only mean one thing. No, not another Gile hike, foliage picture or apple picking trip — it’s election season. While November inches closer, political activity crescendos on campus for Dartmouth students, many of whom are registered to vote in New Hampshire. In the month leading up to Election Day, student political organizations start working overtime to canvas for their preferred candidates.

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Remote Recruitment: Performing Arts Groups Welcome ’24s

By Claire Pingitore | October 14, 2020

In most years, new students hoping to join one of Dartmouth’s performing arts groups attend in-person events and auditions. This year, since singing, dancing or breathing next to someone has become the stuff of nightmares, performance groups adapted their audition processes to work in a socially distanced way.

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Smallpox Yesterday, COVID-19 Today

By Mia Seymour | October 14, 2020

To make sense of COVID-19, we do what we’ve always done when studying emerging historical events — we compare. So naturally, I decided to investigate past disease outbreaks on Dartmouth’s campus. 

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COVID-19 and Baker-Berry: A New Chapter

By Ellie Rudnick | October 14, 2020

When I say that I used to sprint up four flights of stairs to beat an elevator full of people competing for my favorite study spot in Baker-Berry Library during finals period, I am not lying. The fourth floor became my home during my second term as a Dartmouth student.

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Mirror

Freshmen Frenzy: Making Friends in a Pandemic

By Solenne Wolfe | October 14, 2020

Freshman fall is a strange time socially. Everything about high school was structured — you followed a rigid class schedule and knew who to sit with at lunch every day. But college throws you out into the world on your own. No one is there to wake you up in the morning, to double check your outfit before you head out the door or to remind you that you should probably eat something before 6 p.m. The transition can be overwhelming.

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