MIRROR 5.29.19
TTLG: IN MOMENTS 3
TTLG: ENDING IN THE MIDDLE 4
TTLG: LOST AND LIVING 7 SAMANTHA BURACK/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
2// MIRR OR
Editors’ Note
TTLG: Skin Deep TTLG
DIVYA KOPALLE/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
Dartmouth lives for its dramas. Our College’s traditions are flashy, overwrought and overdocumented, as shown by the stream of social media posts immediately following any bonfire, polar plunge or Green Key concert. The candle-lit walk to the BEMA is one of the particularly sentimental traditions here: a ceremonial march completed by freshmen during their orientation week and seniors during their senior week in the most full-circle way possible. In a performative way, it is the sunrise and the sunset to any Dartmouth student’s career. But any good writer knows that a story is not defined by its beginning or ending, but rather by its middle. And since this week’s Mirror brings you the final articles that members of the 175th directorate will write for The Dartmouth, it seems only fitting that we acknowledge that though these writers’ time at the College is ending, their time telling and sharing stories is far from over. We fall prey to the drama this week, with our theme focusing on beginnings and endings. Like most, we are sentimental at the thought of saying goodbye to the people we have looked up to for the past three years. But like our columnists, we encourage our readers, as they celebrate this ending, to remember the many ups and downs of their stories’ middles. It is in this in-between, after all, that writers learn who they really are.
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5.29.19 VOL. CLXXVI NO. 47 MIRROR EDITORS NIKHITA HINGORANI KYLEE SIBILIA ASSOCIATE MIRROR SARAH ALPERT EDITORS NOVI ZHUKOVSKY EDITOR-IN-CHIEF DEBORA HYEMIN HAN PUBLISHER AIDAN SHEINBERG EXECUTIVE EDITOR JULIAN NATHAN
By Lucy Li
I was raised under the sun, yet I wasn’t really supposed to be. My skin takes after my mother’s, who grew up in northern China, where the sun hides for a large part of the year. When my mother was younger, her skin was pale and spotless like porcelain. After living in California for over 20 years, her skin is now adorned with a lovely arrangement of spots and freckles that bear witness to her strength and adaptability. Like my mother, my skin is a physical reflection of my own adaptability. The freckles on my face and patches of hyperpigmentation and white freckles on my arms and legs grow and fade with the sun and the seasons. While I used to dislike these imperfections, as I grew older I came to see them as my body’s own miraculous way of making sense of the environment that nurtured it, even when it wasn’t necessarily designed for that environment. My whole identity has been created by the reconciliation of disparate parts and a desire to find my own sense of place and comfort no matter where I am or who I am surrounded by. My freshman year at Dartmouth, when winter came around and phased the sun out, I fell out of my element and started losing my sense of place. By nature of having an identity that crosses so many lines, being able to discern who I am amongst a sea of influences and prescriptions for who I should be has been the glue to my existence. Freshman year, though, while in the process of rediscovering who I was in relation to a new environment, I realized that I no longer recognized myself. I think a lot of people at Dartmouth come to that realization at some point in time in their self-development here. On a campus as culturally cut-off and niche as Dartmouth, it can be too easy to adopt the behaviors of the norm as a cop-out when you have yet to really know who you are as an individual. The trigger for this realization is different for everyone, but for me, as trivial as it seems, it was the moment when I realized that I had no idea what
was compelling me to wear athleisure every single day, and that I needed to make some changes before my soul died from sheer boredom. Since then, every single term that I’ve come back to Dartmouth, I’ve settled in to a more whole version of myself. My evolution has been the outcome of decisions I’ve made over my four years that I never realized would carry so much impact. What I’ve realized is that Dartmouth is a place that has pushed me to be in a state of constant growth. It’s forced me to consider my values time and time again, and for that I’m grateful — because now, I know who I am in relationship to this environment. Having that familiarity with myself is what keeps me grounded. I’ve been told that I’ve changed so much since freshman year. I think the reason why is because Dartmouth is a place where we experience constant pressure, and with pressure comes
discomfort. I’ve never been someone who could sit with discomfort and ignore it until it passes — my course of action has always been to attack those feelings to get to the root of the problem. And while taking this course of action is both mentally and emotionally exhausting, it also means that growth is always on the other side. My story at Dartmouth has been the development of one of the deepest of loves. When the honeymoon phase ended, I learned that Dartmouth is not an environment that was designed for me. But now that my relationship with Dartmouth has matured, I know that this place has nurtured me and shaped the direction of my life, but I’ve still come out of it feeling a sense of self that is all mine to own. And to me, that is love in its most essential form. Lucy Li ’19 is a former opinion editor of The Dartmouth.
COURTESY OF LUCY LI
MIRR OR //3
TTLG: Dartmouth in Moments TTLG
By Joyce Lee
There was a moment a few terms who were willing to tell me what I become a part of my life. ago when I was trekking back home wanted to hear: Dartmouth is home, But regardless, it’s also true that after another long night in the library. Dartmouth is the place for me, dear my answer to “Why Dartmouth?” is It was snowing and I was miserable and old Dartmouth. Of course there still the same: the people. Or more exhausted, my paper still unfinished, are problems, they would say, but specifically, my people. These people my anxiety acting up in full force. The that’s not unique have become a walk from Baker-Berry to the Lodge to this place — “For the past four natural part of was a long one, made even longer it’s what happens my life, which is years, I’ve navigated from the construction at the Hood when you’re a quite a wonderful Museum of Art and because the college student. my college experience thing. It’s true Hopkins Center for the Arts is closed I wondered if I by constantly that the optimism after midnight. I remember stopping would become of freshman for a moment, looking at the empty similar to my examining the physical year begins to street at 2 a.m. and thinking to myself mentor, bitter and boundaries of myself fade somewhat that perhaps this would be a moment somewhat distant rapidly, for some I would still remember and miss after from this place, or and my surroundings.” even more quickly my time here ends. if I would remain than others. But I Here’s another moment that nostalgic even still find myself occurred during the first week of fall over the more exhausting parts of captivated by the life cycles of these term my freshman year. I met with my experience. I suppose that’s the friendships, how they begin without an upperclassman mentor who had decision all seniors face in these last much reason and yet become the been matched with me through one few days before graduation. reason in and of themselves. of the infinite number of mentor Here’s another moment: Someone Here’s another moment: sitting in programs that had cluttered my inbox asked me, “Why did you come to my friend’s apartment, watching the since July. We sat at a table next to the Dartmouth?” I think I’ve asked this sun come in through the windows. windows at Collis Café, and I watched question, been asked this question, I’ve spent a lot of time here over the students bound in and out of the space, heard this question asked to others, past year, feeling like it’s become my impressive in their ability to grab food over a hundred times. Probably more. foxhole, my escape hatch away from and leave without asking an incessant It’s a valid question, made more valid a campus that sometimes overwhelms. number of questions. by how frequently it’s asked. Why At Dartmouth, we talk a lot about My mentor talked to me for a wouldn’t you want to know the reasons spaces — safe space, making space, bit about what for coming to this taking up too much space, an inclusive I wanted out of campus, isolating space. For the past four years, I’ve “There’s an answer Dartmouth and yourself in New navigated my college experience by how it had been that stands out to Hampshire for constantly examining the physical so far, and I could me: the people. It some of the most boundaries of myself and my tell that she was formative years of surroundings. In this college that is in slowly growing stands out because the your life? the middle of nowhere, surrounded more and more people are probably T h e r e ’s a n by miles of green land and a rushing annoyed with answer that stands river, I have sometimes worried that the least consistent me. I still can’t out to me: the there is not enough space for me. quite figure out element of this people. It stands This is not something exclusive to why — perhaps it campus, perhaps the o u t b e c a u s e Dartmouth, but living in Hanover, was my boundless the people are New Hampshire can make it feel so optimism, my most ephemeral and p ro b a b l y t h e much larger and terrible. In sociology, h e s i t a t i o n i n impermanent.” least consistent there is a concept called “collective asking questions, element of this imagination.” Out of this collective the clear lack of campus, perhaps imagination emerges a culture, a willingness to move out of my comfort the most ephemeral and impermanent. binding identity. College sometimes zone and ask for what I wanted. I For me, this answer is unreliable and operates as a microcosm, and I’ve became nervous and began asking her even a little deceptive. There’s no since found that even if one tries, about herself, and she told me that she guarantee that the people who make desperately, to participate in this was ready to leave Dartmouth as soon Dartmouth great for someone else collective imagination, it can still as possible. will make it great for me. There’s no reject you. I didn’t speak with my mentor after guarantee that they’ll be around when I’ve said that people are the most this, and I found other upperclassmen I am here, or that they will stay and ephemeral part of this campus, but
this collective imagination is not. It creates values and moral codes that are based on how many people are willing to participate. Perhaps when we say that the reason we came to Dartmouth is because of the people, we are talking more about this collective imagination. I can say that my freshman-year optimism is tied to my desire to participate in this imagination; I have wanted to be part of it since I first stepped foot on this campus. In my first few terms, I truly believed I could be. There are many reasons why I have sometimes felt completely rejected by this collective; I won’t go into them here. I know that there are people who have felt similarly, or those who have sometimes decided to reject the
collective imagination on their end. In those moments, it’s hard to justify my reasons for being here, in this space. It’s hard to believe that there is any room for me at all. Yet in my foxhole, with the people I have loved and connected with in these past few years, I’ve found another Dartmouth. It might not be perfect or what I imagined when I arrived on this campus, but it is something I am grateful to have experienced. For this, I will be nostalgic and regretful to leave when the time comes. For this, I can tell others that I was glad to have been at this small and isolated campus — to have become a part of this place. Joyce Lee ’19 is a former arts editor of The Dartmouth.
COURTESY OF JOYCE LEE
4// MIRR OR
TTLG: On Ending in the Middle TTLG
By Evan Morgan
“Game of Thrones” ended last Sunday, and people hated it. The next day, while hot takes exploded across the internet, an ’80s-style remake of the final scene made the rounds on Twitter. As Jon Snow rides north, he looks back over his shoulder one last time — and then Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” slides in. A character montage rolls as tongue-in-cheek “Where are they now?” text flashes on the screen. “Arya found land west of Westeros and named it Westereros,” we learn. “Bronn was stabbed and killed in a bar fight three days later.” I’m not ashamed to admit I watched this version of the “Game of Thrones” ending at least a hundred times last week. Partly because I’m a sucker for gigantic synthpop choruses. But also because, after the disappointment of Thrones’ final season, the imagined “Where are they now?” lines restored some of the nuance that I loved about the show. In the new fake ending, some characters died and others lived. Some achieved their aims and others fell into darker paths. You got the sense that the past seven seasons had been a snapshot of a world that kept going. Dartmouth seniors are like the “Game of Thrones” showrunners: We like tidy conclusions. You know how you’ll go home and talk to that aunt you barely ever see and she’ll ask “How’s college?” And you’ll reflexively say, “It’s good?” We often frame our Dartmouth stories the same way, with an instinctive “It’s good” that washes everything underneath away. I spoke at Masculinities of Dartmouth a couple weeks ago, and all four of us on stage told a version of the same story — we got to Dartmouth, we were challenged, we overcame that challenge and here we are now, so much the better for it. I was tired of that kind of story. And yet there I was, talking about how I was
challenged to be vulnerable, and how I overcame that challenge by joining the triathlon team. Bravo, Evan. Gold star for you. Taking three history courses this spring has got me thinking not only about the desperation of completing half the history minor in one term, but also about narratives. There’s a difference between the way we live history and the way we tell stories about history. It’s the difference between a textbook and a journal. Textbooks reduce history to cause and effect. They’re stories you probably know. What brought down the Roman Empire? An ailing economy and some illtimed defeats on the battlefield. Why did World War I happen? Rising tides of nationalism and colonialism. It’s simple and linear and more or less true, given a hundred or a thousand years of hindsight. If you read the journal of someone who lived through that history, the linear paths go away. Even when you’re standing on the cusp of something historic, predicting the future is hard. One lecture in my modern African history class discussed the political changes of the 1940s, and I claimed — out loud — that I could see the roots of the coming independence movements. But even the future independence leaders didn’t know the scope of the changes that were about to happen. When you know how something turns out, you start looking backward to pinpoint its roots. And you see the past differently. When I remember my Dartmouth experience, I want to remember the journal version, not the textbook version. I want to remember the terms I felt lonely and inadequate alongside the terms I felt at home. I want to remember joining the triathlon team alongside the time I went to the gym at 6 a.m. freshman year and left because I was
intimidated. I want to remember the confusion and uneasiness of rush and the community I found in the Sustainable Living Center. The Dartmouth I lived was full of forking paths. What if I had kept hiking with the Outing Club? What if I had majored in classics or computer science? What if I had stuck with rush instead of dropping my bid? What if I had studied abroad? What if I hadn’t joined The Dartmouth? All of these Dartmouths were once possible. When I tell the story of my college experience, I’m tempted to frame all the decisions I made as the right ones, the ones that led to the best outcome — the Dartmouth that I’m living right now, with 11 days until graduation. But I didn’t live those other Dartmouths, and I can’t know what they would have been like. So here’s a request to the ’19s: Let’s remember that we live our
lives in the middle of our own Experience ending like that stories. They were unfolding fake ’80s remake of “Game of before Dartmouth and they Thrones.” I’ll walk across the will continue to unfold after stage with degree in hand, and Dartmouth. We often stood at a the cinematic ending will start. I’ll fork and didn’t know what was gaze over my shoulder at Phil one last time. Then going to come I’ll turn back to next — even "Your Dartmouth the camera as though we now Tears for Fears know where the experience doesn't — or insert your forks have led us. have to have a tidy sentimental As seniors, we beginning and end, graduation artist tell stories about of choice — when we were because it's the starts playing. naïve freshmen. middle part of a The “Where are In a decade or they now?” text two, we’ll look longer story." will flash on the back on these screen. In 20, 30, years and tell stories about how we were dumb 40 years, I’ll know what it says. But college students. Your Dartmouth for now, standing on the precipice experience doesn’t have to have a of graduation, “Where are they tidy beginning and end, because now?” is full of possibilities. The it’s the middle part of a longer story is ending in the middle. story. Evan Morgan '19 is a former sports I’d like to imagine my last four seasons of The Dartmouth editor of The Dartmouth.
COURTESY OF EVAN MORGAN
MIRR OR //5
TTLG: Intentional Box-Checking TTLG
By Sonia Qin
I have a habit that often annoys my friends. Before watching a movie or starting a TV series, I have to read the Wikipedia plot summary first so I know the ending. I try to do the same with books if there is a plot summary available online. One could call this a bad habit, but I never saw anything wrong with it. This practice maximizes my enjoyment of media because I can watch or read things without having to be stressed about whether my favorite character would die. Suspense has never been my cup of tea. My need to know the ending has been a recurring theme in my life. I have always been a very goal-driven individual who loves to categorize her life in terms of which goal she is in the midst of achieving. I feel more secure if I establish a finish line for myself and strive toward that finish line. Sometimes my goals are larger and more long-term, such as graduating college (still currently a goal that I will not consider checked off until I physically hold my degree in two weeks). Other goals can seem more trivial and insignificant — trying to wake up every morning before 10 a.m. this term, for example (I have only failed at this a few times). Regardless of the scope or difficulty of a goal, I have always structured my life around meticulously creating checkboxes and ticking them off one by one. The end result has always been what matters most — but my philosophy now appears to be shifting. Over the past few weeks, as graduation looms near, many friends have asked me how I feel about leaving Dartmouth. These questions, asked over and over, have prompted me to pause in my 100-mile sprint through college and begin to think more carefully about my four years at Dartmouth. This column has also given me the opportunity to actually write down some of my musings as they have occurred to me over the past weeks. Spring is thesis season, and during the past several days I have attended numerous friends’ thesis defenses
and listened to the research they perhaps even more meaningful. The have devoted their lives to for the checkboxes have long been ticked past year. Watching my friends speak off, but only now have I had the so passionately about their work has chance to really look carefully at reminded me that I am surrounded the products of those checkboxes. Many of my favorite memories by incredibly smart, talented and driven people here. I continue to from college come from experiences be amazed at the accomplishments that I never really considered of each and every one of my checkboxes. I have taken almost 10 different PE classmates. At classes, ranging Dartmouth, we from ice skating often hear people "Many of my to kickboxing. complain about favorite memories T his ter m, I the intensity from college come made a giant and amount of teapot in the work they have, from experiences ceramics studio. more so than the that I never I h ave g o n e actual content canoeing on of their work. really considered the Connecticut The senior thesis checkboxes." River and presentations learned how to allowed me to witness the richness of my peers’ unicycle. These are things that I academic accomplishments and have done on a whim but have given inspired me to inspect my own prior me some of my fondest Dartmouth memories. academic checkboxes. Some people say college is the By the time I graduate in two weeks, I will have taken 35 classes best four years of your life. I have in college, meaning I’ve completed not lived long enough to ascertain dozens, if not hundreds, of exams whether or not that is true, but and papers. I rarely, if ever, revisit this view of college may arise from the fact that my old papers college is a and exams once "Some people say time and place they are turned of extensive i n , b u t m y college is the best availability. In experience with four years of your life. c o l l e g e, y o u the senior thesis have access to p r e s e n t a t i o n s I have not lived long fun events, cool inspired me to enough to ascertain speaker s, the take a walk down whether or not that gym, the library memory lane. A — everything few days ago, I is true, but this view is at your reopened several of the college may fingertips if you Word files on my just walk out c o m p u t e r a n d arise from the fact of your dorm. read over my old that college is a time in papers, allowing and place of extensive Meanwhile, the “real world,” myself to revisit we will have to the material I availability." be much more have learned in intentional with my classes over the past years. Looking back on our time. We will have to really the subjects I have learned and the pick and choose what we want to knowledge I have amassed has been do and when we want to do it. No incredibly fulfilling — different from more walking five minutes to the the kind of satisfaction I feel when gym to take a Zumba class or going I turn in a paper and exam, and to the Hopkins Center for the Arts
COURTESY OF SONIA QIN
to hear a presidential candidate speak. When I enter the real world after graduation, time and resource constraints mean I will not be able to have as many checkboxes as I do now. What I will have, however, is the time to be more intentional about each checkbox. A common piece of advice given to freshmen is, “It’s okay to not know what you want to do.” While I wholeheartedly agree with this, I want to say that while it’s okay to not know what you want to do, it’s also okay to know what you want to do. There is nothing wrong with having concrete goals and checkboxes in life and enjoying the feeling of ticking them off one
by one. However, if you are a boxchecker like me, I invite you to join me in my little reflection exercise: I am now experimenting with slowing down and taking the time to reflect on what each checkbox means to me while savoring the process that I underwent to achieve each checkbox goal. My hope is that these reflections will help me be more intentional with my time as I close one chapter of my life and begin another. And maybe, just maybe, when I watch my next movie or read my next book, I will try to stay away from Wikipedia. Sonia Qin '19 is a former news managing editor of The Dartmouth.
6 // MIRR OR
TTLG: No Proof Necessary TTLG
By Alexa Green
I’m a little bitter that the Hood is just now opening as we’re leaving. I wish I had more time there. I have spent hours wandering the art museum, marveling at Dartmouth’s well-funded resources at our fingertips. And there’s one painting that I keep coming back to: Mark Rothko’s “Lilac and Orange over Ivory.” It stands in stark contrast to my busy, frequently overloaded time running around this campus. Each rectangle reads as a distinct color. The light purple, the color of orchids bleached by the sun, is set against an intense orange, demanding to be seen. They almost clash, barely separated by a thin off-white barrier. But the longer I look at it, my perspective shifts. The painting is a gentle confrontation, its effusive colors nudging and bleeding into one another so we cannot truly say which block has been imposed onto the other. There’s too much there to stay within such simple boundaries. Rothko’s canvas shows its love, and his attention is as legible as the written word. The nearly 10-foot-tall canvas is wrinkled in some parts, and there are water stains and visible streaks of paint in others, perhaps where Rothko lingered too long. It’s an abstraction of mess, maintaining the care to stay within its parameters but still inviting others in. The painting is seemingly straightforward, but complex. There is so much more to it. The massive scale of the canvas invites an audience to appreciate its interplay of colors, then revel in the emotional sentimentality of it. My time at Dartmouth has invited the same reflection. I like to linger, to ruminate, question and marvel at the world around me. It’s going fast. In a painting with swaths of color, muted in their vibrancy, I suppose we’re searching for the murmurs of universal truth. It’s abstract, but there is an unshakeable feeling of something emanating from this opaque mirror. Maybe it’s my emotions, projected and moving beyond the rectangles, pushing
boundaries. The colors remain familiar, adapting various identities in the blank space with all the time in the world. My four years here have been spent exploring these blank spaces, searching for agency and looking to gain legitimacy in Dartmouth’s constant shifts. The intensity with which I dove headfirst into every possible College-branded activity originally stemmed from a deepseated imposter syndrome. I applied to Dartmouth as an early decision applicant but was deferred into the regular decision pool and then waitlisted. Then, a week after my graduation during a family dinner, I received a call from Dartmouth’s admissions office asking if I’d be interested in a spot in the Class of 2019. Shocked, I vividly remember collapsing to the ground, choking out a sob: “Yes. Yes, I’d be very interested. Yes, definitely please.” The College had admitted me last minute, and I felt the desperate need to prove to “them” that they hadn’t made a mistake. Recognizing that now makes me want to laugh. Who is “them?” If I wasn’t a stereotypical brochureworthy Dartmouth student, would my Dartmouth ID card be revoked? The answer is (most likely) no. Still, I sought to live up to my imagined standards. I jumped into activities and ran back and forth, rarely pausing between meetings. I felt the need to find ownership over some part of campus, looking for formative experiences that were deserving of meaning and that would reveal never-before-seen universal truths. So, I joined The Dartmouth my freshman winter, taking on roles as a copy editor and then a writer — reveling in the joy of being in the newsroom and picking apart stories for typos and fact-checking details. Then, I applied to be a tour guide, a research assistant, a First-Year Fellow, a DREAM mentor and a Chabad board member. I played on the women’s club lacrosse team. While I was rejected for First-Year
Fellows and DREAM, I proceeded to take on my new activities with vigor. They were obligations for communities I was excited to pursue. Being involved in so much made me feel more legitimate at Dartmouth, like I was deeply invested in this campus. Running around made me feel like I had purpose. Sophomore year, I started working for the Rockefeller Center for Public Policy as a public programs assistant — I was being paid to attend fascinating, if very niche, lectures about public policy and its impact on the world around us. While that was only one facet of my job, the idea that my employer also wanted to provide me with learning opportunities was such a new concept. I jumped for more responsibility and opportunities because I thought that’s what I should be doing. I wanted to be conscientious about my time here, and so I filled it with more chances for growth. Maybe I thought that if I grew enough and worked hard enough, I would earn my spot. But what I should have realized is that I’m continually earning my spot. My being here is enough proof. My time at Dartmouth has been defined by the continual pull to keep moving and going forward. To constantly be working towards some sort of improvement and recognizing that things change. We change with them, with all the growth opportunities, rising to the challenge. Dartmouth has taught me that life is not linear. It doubles back, fast forwards, sticks in some places and gets caught in the occasional loop. It informs itself and moves along … rarely in a straight line. Our experiences and relationships come back again and again, ever shaping us. I don’t want to stop learning and stop attending strange lectures and listening to experts in hyper-focused fields. I want to keep pursing the details, keep editing and rereading and finding the meaning I ascribe to the world.
COURTESY OF ALEXA GREEN
I’ve worked as a writer and editor for The Dartmouth, an editorial intern at a publishing company and a reporter for Bloomberg News. And I can say with the utmost certainty that I am very selfconscious about my writing. The news stuff is one thing, but once I bring my personality and lack of expertise into the mix, I feel again like the waitlist kid. Behind that lies the fear that someone is going to read this and realize I wasn’t meant to be here. But, the thing is, I do. I’ve poured my love into The
Dartmouth and all of my other activities because that is where I found a place where I could make an impact. And I truly feel like I did. As a waitlist kid, four years out, I keep searching for universal truths, for activities to prove I have a purpose. But there’s nothing wrong with that, and if anything, I think it’s made Dartmouth all the more valuable to me. Alexa Green ’19 is a former news managing editor of The Dartmouth.
MIRR OR //7
TTLG: Lost and Living TTLG
By Matt Brown
My first term at Dartmouth was of the College. I have at times mostly spent grabbing meals. Like been complicit in letting many many, I was unaccustomed to, but regrettable incidents happen. excited by, the ability to eat at all Maybe that’s just the price of hours of the day. The Class of existing here. One of the more 1953 Commons and Collis Café disheartening things I experienced saw much of my DBA in my first in my time at Dartmouth was few weeks here. More engrossing professors repeatedly confiding to me, though, was the chance to to me that their “real” job — meet and talk with people from rather than fostering teaching and so many different backgrounds. mentoring — was unfortunately to Hearing my new classmates tell make already privileged students stories of places I’d only once into even more powerful alumni. imagined was both exciting and Throughout all of this, I lost overwhelming. my sense of self — and with it, This enchantment only grew the ability to navigate what is in the classroom, where I realized a harsh place. There are many the sheer possibility of what a paths to success and happiness at liberal arts education could mean. Dartmouth, chief among them I fell in love with the multiplicity finding a community to support of this place, of the many inviting you. Between my extracurricular futures Dartmouth offered. This activities, coursework and time promise of spent with reinvention was “People thrive here friends from so appealing across campus, because I, like because someone I saw great many before took the time to moments of me, was unsure community. I’ve invest in them. It’s of my selfhood continued to before coming an insight that I wish meet amazing to Hanover. I we at Dartmouth and people who didn’t know are realizing who I wanted beyond took more their potential to become at seriously.” at Dartmouth, Dartmouth, but often because I was sure that I of the support could find a place for myself here. of others. People thrive here In such a dynamic community, I because someone took the time to thought that I’d find a home. invest in them. It’s an insight that I Sometime in the interceding wish we at Dartmouth and beyond four years, the College’s promise took more seriously. lost its varnish. The many possible I found great support in futures for students so quickly moments at the College, but never narrow into a handful of majors a true mentor. Being aimless has and careers. The intensity of its perks and its drawbacks. Many campus corrals many into ever- times, I flung myself into different busier, self-inflicted schedules. involvements and studies, not This campus can be a cruel place, because I found them intrinsically with efforts to better it usually just motivating, but because someone showing the intransigence and else had found value in them impunity our society affords the before me. Not taking the time to most powerful. learn about myself, and instead Accounts of Dartmouth’s letting this place and others belligerent party culture, define me, was a great mistake unapologetic classism, obvious of my time here. Predictably, racism and sexual violence will this strategy was a poor one for be prevalent in my memory finding meaning, community or
fulfillment at Dartmouth. That said, there’s a strange pleasure in meandering from one program and event to another, in learning from many different types of people and being in periodic awe of the scope of what one tiny college campus can offer all at once. That wandering and reflection has turned out to be one of my great joys. One of the reasons why I began writing and editing opinion was because it was the closest proxy I’d encountered to what I truly found inspiring: hearing and telling the stories from those I around me. Dartmouth is clearly many things to many people: the ultimate playground; an academic monastery; a pressure cooker; a refuge; a prison. As The Dartmouth’s opinion editor, I saw
campus through many of those of my transformation would lenses and tried to give each its have happened at any university proper due. Though I did my best I attended. How fortunate, then, to channel these that I made such many different fond memories experiences, I “I never found a home in a place can only speak at Dartmouth. But I with as many to my own. For stories as here, saw many beautiful me, Dartmouth despite plenty was a place things and had the of difficult where an unsure privilege of knowing moments. and anxious kid I never was given a safe many beautiful found a home place to learn people.” at Dartmouth. and grow. It was But I saw many an unexpected beautiful things but needed blessing. For that, I’m and had the privilege of knowing grateful. many beautiful people. I look I doubt that anything in my forward to seeing what the rest of journey has been something this the world will offer. campus hasn’t seen countless times before over the last 250 Matt Brown ’19 is a former opinion years. I’m also positive that much editor of The Dartmouth.
COURTESY OF MATT BROWN
8// MIRR OR
Here Comes The Sun PHOTO
By Divya Kopalle