Freshman View: Thrown From The Nest

Freshman View is a weekly column in which Freshmen at the College answer questions posed by Upperclassmen and Alumni. This week, 24s address whether or not they feel prepared to end their introductory year at the College in less than two months.

Have questions you want answered? Send them to dartrevieweditor@gmail.com

*Some names have been changed

I was pretty shocked when I realized that I would no longer be a freshman in seven or so weeks. Because I was off-campus for the fall and winter terms, I’ve been on campus for a grand total of thirteen days. “Sense of community” is nowhere to be found. Support infrastructure, particularly for those new to campus this term, is almost nonexistent. The programs that exist feel superficial. One program which connects new-to-campus 24s with previously-on-campus 24s has good intentions but fails to actually help us acclimate, instead, answering purely practical questions about living on campus. On top of that, the college’s COVID policy, while reportedly laxer than previous terms, seems to contribute to the class divide further. By the end of my first year at Dartmouth, I will be more familiar with some summer camps or vacation spots than Dartmouth’s campus—all of which points to the fact that I am nowhere near prepared to end my introductory year.

— Ian Kim

Entering my second on-campus term, my feelings about my first year are mostly ambivalent. While I am extremely optimistic about the coming years, I cannot help but wonder if our class was properly set up for success by the College. I must admit that navigating COVID challenges and creating a responsible but reasonable protocol is no easy task, yet this year the burden to adapt fell heavily upon our class. On the academic side, interactions with professors and classmates have been overwhelmingly positive, with almost all parties trying their best in this sub-optimal Zoom environment. Still, having never set foot in an academic building or met a single Dartmouth professor in person, both I and many of my peers feel deprived of valuable first-year experiences. I also have lingering fears that sophomore fall will be somewhat of a “second orientation.” From in-person classes to Greek life, I have still yet to experience many aspects of the College. Socially, COVID restrictions have been damaging to class cohesion, with the College encouraging the reporting of their own classmates and significant numbers of students choosing to simply live off-campus. Still, I am very grateful for the people I have met and opportunities afforded to me this year, but I doubt that looking back we can confidently say that this distinct year has brought us closer together or made the Class of 2024 fully prepared for the “real” Dartmouth.

— Blake Rouzie

Dartmouth has lived up to all of my expectations: bucolic and picturesque landscape, a tight-knit community, and wonderful professors. I have genuinely enjoyed my time here, all of eight weeks of it. It’s not difficult to find summer camps lengthier than what most of us have experienced. Although, I must admit that the administration and the parish council have kept me sufficiently entertained. In my time here, I’ve run from SNS, Police Officers, and even Firemen. I haven’t had first year trips, never touched the fire, never been in a frat, and frankly hardly know what Green Key is. The bureaucratic nature of Dartmouth has been astonishingly awful. Leverone has become a cesspool where bacteria can spread. Yesterday, Dartmouth finalized its Class of ’25. Am I ready to become a sophomore? No. Has this article been coherent, also no, but that’s probably because my time here has been all over the place. I probably should have taken a gap year.

— Nanthan Zhou*

I’ve found a great group of friends, although part of that was because I had the financial means and the luck to be able to find a place near campus for the winter instead of being at home. I’ve had success in my classes, and I feel prepared to handle the Dartmouth workload, although that’s mostly due to taking initiative and reaching out to my professors on my own. I’ve (sort of) figured out how to live on my own, although that was a process of trial and error and learning on my own more than anything. Basically, I’ve had to attain all the “goals” of freshman year myself. I think what’s been missing is an official, structured introduction to the school, run by the school. My OPL group was great during the fall (not sure if I’m in the minority or not on that one), but any other orientation was really non-existent. I’m sure people worked very hard to make the programs, but Zoom trips and orientation just really can’t replace what we would have had in a normal year, and Zoom classes don’t have the same kind of interaction real classes do. At the end of the day, I think I’m prepared to end the year and move forward with my Dartmouth experience, socially and work-wise. That being said, I think it might have been a much smoother transition if orientation had been in-person—as it was, this year felt very much like being thrown into the deep end. Whether or not that was a good thing is something we’ll have to see about in the future.

— Connor Boehm