The Dartmouth Compact Mirror 7/31/15

MIRROR 07.31.2015

COPING WITH DUCK SYNDROME|2

TRENDING & OVERHEARDs @ DArtmouth|2-3

TYPES OF TYPE-A: SUCCESS STEREOTYPES|4

FINDING HOME IN OFF-CAMPUS HOUSING|4 Anthony Chicaiza/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

2// MIRROR

EDITORS’ NOTE

Collected on the surface, The role of “Duck Syndrome” on Dartmouth’s campus B y REBECCA ASOULIN

STORY

ANNIE MA/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

As of this week, sophomores on campus have officially “crossed the X.” We’re halfway through our college careers, and it’s only up from here, right? Even though we’ve come this far, however, the road ahead seems a little more serious and a lot more uncertain. Are corporate financiers real people? Am I still pre-med? Should I have taken two classes this term? ‘Success’ in the time of sophomore summer, and at Dartmouth in general, is hard to pin down, but in the midst of it all, take some time to read this issue, cross a few items off your bucket list, and stop to consider other people, because it’s entirely possible that the calm and collected genius gliding along in the class you thought would be a layup is paddling just as furiously underneath the surface as ever yone else.

Sincerely, Priya

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MIRROR R MIRROR EDITOR PRIYA RAMAIAH

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF KATIE McKAY

PUBLISHER JUSTIN LEVINE

EXECUTIVE EDITOR SARA McGAHAN

My younger brother came to visit me this weekend. He mentioned to me how happy ever yone seemed and how nice, how cool, how fun, how accomplished.

Seeing Dar tmouth through his eyes reminded me of my first impression of the College. I wanted to come here because ever yone seemed so happy and because, frankly, alumni scared me with how much they seemed to love the College.

But all the emotional baggage that comes with daily life does not disappear because we attend a school like Dartmouth. In fact, elite institutions can exacerbate many of those problems.

Often, students feel pressure to mask personal struggles rather than deal with them openly.

At Stanford University, the term “Duck Syndrome” describes the pressure students feel to appear outwardly collected even while dealing with inner turmoil, a phenomenon documented in a recent New York Times feature on University of Pennsylvania student Madison Holleran’s suicide.

John Damianos ’16, an undergraduate adviser and peer adviser, said that he often uses the image of a duck floating ef for tlessly while frantically kicking to stay afloat to describe “the pressure to be perfect at Dar tmouth.”

Students feel the need to present a self that lives up to a standard that is a construct of student’s insecurities and masque the effort that helps them “stay afloat,” he said.

Kathr yn Lively, a sociology professor who studies emotion, said that students, especially over the past five years, bring up the issue in class when discussing emotion norms on campus. She said that the issue relates to the sociological theor y of emotional deviance.

“When you’re unable to bring your feelings in line with existing norms you’ll begin feel emotionally deviant,” Lively said. “I think the students who come to Dartmouth who hit a wall either in their personal life or with classes feel emotionally deviant.”

Students look around and “normatively ever yone looks like it’s easy, ever yone else looks like they love Dar tmouth, ever yone else looks like they couldn’t be happier,” she said.

These students therefore feel unable to admit being anxious, unhappy or other negative emotions.

’17: I need to take

my one class more seriously

‘17: Every part of my body is moist.

Lively said that feelings of emotional deviancy can lead to “a negative spiral” that compounds the original negative emotions.

“You now also have to deal with this feeling that you don’t really fit in or there’s something wrong with you because you’re not happy enough, you’re not chill enough, you’re not able to handle ever ything the way ever yone else is,” Lively said.

Amara Ihionu ’17, a member of Active Minds, a group that promotes awareness of mental illness, said that an impor tant par t of countering this pressure is breaking down “social scripts.”

She pointed out that in interactions like asking how someone is doing people often follow scripts rather than being honest. Ihionu said that being vulnerable and admitting true experiences can be dif ficult for students.

“I’ve star ted doing that, saying I’m tired or I’ve had a bad day,” she said.

“Even though it’s hard, someone has to be vulnerable and it lets people know that it’s okay for them to be vulnerable as well.”

Damianos said that many students who speak with him in his role as a student advisor discuss feelings of inadequacy and not being able to compare

to peers’ achievements or abilities. The most common phrase he hears is, “I don’t belong here.”

“My next question is always, ‘What makes you think that?’” he said. “The most common response is a comparison to other people.”

In Lively’s first-year writing seminar “Emotion and Culture,” she said that she asks her students to look at a par ticular emotion and document norms around that emotion on campus.

Students began describing this issue when examining emotions like anxiety, fear or homesickness.

Damianos said the pressure comes from a variety of sources. He noted that at institutions like Dar tmouth, with statistically high achieving students, research shows that students suf fer from mental health issues at higher frequencies than the general population.

Higher than average levels of anxiety lead to motivation, and so its no surprise students at college or university deal with higher levels of anxiety, he said.

When that baseline high anxiety compounds with the pressure of College, pressure from peers, parents and other sources we see the Duck Syndrome, he said.

Lively noted that at elite institutions

NATALIE CANTAVE/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

Some students take advantage of counseling services at Dick’s house to cope with stress.

English professor: What’s the name of that book about the rich guy in Long Island?

’17: A Skype interview means I only have to be business professional from the waist up, right?

‘17: I’m starting to think I’m an anarchist.

‘17: You only sophomore summer once? YOSSO?

MIRROR //3

struggling underneath students are often “image conscious.” Students come from successful backgrounds and so can find the transition to being among “4,500 people equally as smar t as you” dif ficult, she said.

She said that in larger institutions it could be easier for students to defer from the norm.

“I hear students talk a lot about the fishbowl ef fect,” she said. “Because the College is so small ever yone feels highly visible and that drives a stronger need to fit in.”

All norms can have positive and negative ef fects, Lively said. But norms become an issue when viewed as an imperative, she said. In this instance, one can feel like if the standard can’t be met one doesn’t belong there.

Lively said that a few years ago she spoke to a student who had been having dif ficulties began to feel grounded after becoming a tour guide. She said that the student grew confidence through talking up Dar tmouth and grew to believe what she was talking about in that position. This is an example of how norms can lead to a positive outcome, she said Lively said that from an institutional perspective, she would like to see more “honest discussion” about this pressure especially surrounding the transition to college. She noted that first-year students would benefit from these conversations.

“I think you can still talk about the fact that people love it here, and the students are really happy here and that we have this

work hard play hard mentality,” Lively said.

“And acknowledge that some of this stuf f is really hard so no one feels like there is something wrong with them, or there’s something broken, or that they don’t belong here.”

Damianos repeated the need for all students to engage in honest discussion on the Duck Syndrome in order to counter

its ef fects. He noted that students could leverage anxiety through techniques like mindfulness for personal development.

“We can use something traditionally viewed as a weakness to become a stronger person,” Damianos said. “We all have anxiety, let’s admit it and figure out how we can use it to make ourselves better and contribute to society.”

Trending D @ RTMOUTH

sweltering heat

BUCKET LISTS Cue the week six panic

RAIN RAIN EVERYWHERE

Does the library sell umbrellas?

Interview Stress

FAITH ROTICH/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

The Center for Professional Development’s corporate recruiting process can be stressful.

How many people in business attire can you spot on campus?

TypesofType-A:SuccessIdeals The Mirror breaks down the stereotypes of high achievement Spotlight

B y HAYLEY HOVERTER

‘17s are halfway done!

Career-Driven:

Academic:

You can recognize her over sophomore summer in her clean office dress and heels.

We heard that she once sat next to Warren Buffet on a plane and she helped him with his stock portfolio. They know all of the right people. They keep their resumes in the plastic covering in front of their binder for all to see. They can write business memos in their sleep and make a P&L sheet with their eyes closed. When you meet them, they will add you on Linkedin before Facebook because they know that’s what is going to matter more in ten years.

They set the cur ve in ever y class, so you once considered begging them not to study for the midterm. You knew it wouldn’t work, though – they were in the stacks on Green Key studying for finals weeks in advance. They’re in of fice hours with your professor to talk about research oppor tunities when you’re there to ask about a simple problem.

They’r e single-handedly responsible for our school’s academic rigor and you gasped at them when they boldly asser ted that they think “pong is for children.”

Social: They say “let’s do coffee” and you oblige only to find out later that they say that to the whole school. Their iCals are so full that it looks like some spilled a bunch of pastel marshmallows on their screens.

They still remember your name, birthday, and hometown from freshman floor meetings because they’re that good.

They’ve been invited to ever y after party of ever y campus performer (yes, even Lonely Boy).

The only drawback is that they once cut you in line at KAF to talk to their friends. But it was still a little awesome.

Crossing of the X

Reality: Who’s really like any of these people? No one – ever yone loves pong.

At the risk of sounding like a camp counselor, none of us are one thing, and that’s what makes us special.

Whether you have spent or no time in office hours this term (isn’t this a sophomore summer tradition?) or don’t own an iron let alone a suit, you’ve probably figured out that it doesn’t matter.

So prep for that inter view, go out ever y weeknight, and study more than you want to.To borrow an oft’-repeated phrase, ever yone is just tr ying to do them.

PARENts’ weekend No more parents, no more rules

KAF HOURS Caffeine addiction doesn’t stop at 4pm

4// MIRROR

Navigating Off-Campus Housing Student housing beyond the dorms has a culture of its own STORY

B y ANNIE MA

Jumping in to sophomore summer from an of f-term in Pittsburgh, I expected to miss the bustle of the city, the freedom of empty evenings after work and the seemingly endless things to explore. But after six weeks back on campus and back in the dorms, I’m star ting to realize that what I’m longing for the most is my dumpy apar tment, broken heating and dingy kitchen.

There’s something to be said about the comfor ts of having your own space, which can be hard in the packed dorms we usually inhabit. Though the residence halls will likely dominate most of our college careers, a significant por tion of campus has found a place to call home that isn’t a dorm over the summer term.

Summer term remains one of the most popular times to live of f campus, but how does being away from the bustle of things change the way we experience Dartmouth?

For Olivia Bauer ‘17, living of f-campus this term has opened up another social space for her. Sharing a house with a group of friends creates a tight-knit group to come home to.

“It’s just nice to have a space of my own that’s not on campus where I can socialize,” Bauer said.

Unfor tunately, Bauer said that her house is located relatively far away from the center of campus. She and her friends star ted their apar tment hunt at the star t of sophomore winter, a solid five months before they would have to move in.

A cco r ding to Kish C o n su l t i n g & Contracting owner Jolin Kish ‘88 Th‘91, whose company provides rental housing to Dar tmouth undergraduates and graduate students, that’s already a late star t getting into the of f-campus house hunt.

“What people need to know is that if they want to live of f campus sophomore summer, they need to figure it out sophomore fall,” Kish said. “By the time a lot of people go home at the end of the fall, they know where they are living the next summer.”

Kish said that the longer people wait, the fur ther away they will end up living.

Knowledge of which houses are available frequently travels by word of mouth, she said, which means many proper ties are never of ficially listed in public postings.

Instead, the current occupants tell younger friends who get first pick once they move out, which limits the options she has to show interested renters who get star ted late, Kish said.

“I have plenty of people asking about this fall, but I also have a lot calling about the 2016-17 school year,” Kish said. “To be honest, I don’t have that much to show them in terms of senior year housing because so much of it is already locked up, so that’s just a warning you should figure it out early.”

Kish said that when it comes to housing, regardless of whether it’s on - or of f- campus, location matters. If you are located closer to where things are happening in any given term, she said, it will likely be a benefit for your social experience.

“For example, living down West Wheelock Street, that’s closer to summer activities,” Kish said. “But even during the year, some of the houses are more central that dorms that are actually on campus, depending on which one, so where you live is always shaping your social experience.”

Kish remembered her experiences living of f campus as an undergraduate at the College, stating that the most notable change since her time was the availability of housing.

“Back then, undergrads took up ever y available spot in a one mile radius really quickly, so ever yone who didn’t get it was much more spread out,” Kish said. “Grad students had to live really far away, and when I did grad studies at Dartmouth I lived 17 miles away at one point. It’s unheard of today, because they don’t have to since there’s so much more availability than 30 years ago.”

Nowadays, Kish finds that many of the proper ties she shows to prospective student renters are ones where she used to live. Like any undergraduate society house, she said that memories and miscellaneous items have a way of collecting over the years on these proper ties.

“Things that are left there kind of become ar tifacts of the house, par t of its character,” Kish said.

Those living of f campus often say that having their own kitchen and bathroom is one of the greatest perks of renting an apar tment. Kish agreed, saying that the comfor ts of home and having control over your space was something that students will be hard pressed to find in the dorms.

The perks of your own space also comes with your own responsibility. Milan Huynh ‘17, who lived in an apar tment while at Dar tmouth for her freshmen summer, said that having to maintain her apar tment’s

ABIGAIL REYNOLDS/THE DARTMOUTH

Students say that having a private kitchen is a major benefit of living off-campus.

ABIGAIL REYNOLDS/THE DARTMOUTH

“The Rock” off-campus hosue is home to members of the Dartmouth Outing Club. upkeep made her appreciate how much was taken care of while living on campus.

“More than anything, I learned to appreciate what college custodians do for us,” Huynh said. “They’re literally the fair y godparents of the dorms and do so much, which you don’t fully appreciate until you’re independent and responsible for it yourself.”

Bauer agreed, and said that keeping a clean apartment required much more work than she expected. In the future, she said she will probably stay on campus.

Kish said that regardless of whether you choose to live on or of f campus, it’s the people you surround yourself with that

will have the greatest impact on your social experience. Par t of what draws people to rent apar tments is that they have more control of who they will be with, she said, especially because the housing process does not let you guarantee who your floormates will be.

“Would I choose to live of f campus with randos? No,” Kish said. “You can keep your friends tight, which isn’t assured in the housing process. It’s a dif ferent lifestyle, but overall summer term just tends to be more relaxed. When I was here for sophomore summer, it was ‘Camp Dar tmouth,’ it didn’t feel grueling, and all of that makes for a memorable experience.”

ABIGAIL REYNOLDS/THE DARTMOUTH

Some off-campus houses are significantly farther from the center of campus.