Another Greatest hit

As we move into 2008, I want to share my thoughts on my first full year in college. Here it is:

I have been home for a little over a week now, and I want to offer my reflections on my freshman year of high school.

I will start with the academics. Overall, I have been fairly pleased with my professors this year. They have been accessible for the most part, and I have taken advantage of this by going to their office hours, which I think has helped my grade. I want to talk briefly about two of the most memorable professors I have had thus far. When I first met her, I thought my Chinese professor was insane. She assigned so many new characters to learn a week, and she seemed very harsh at first. However, she also had a motherly side, and cared deeply for her students. When I was sick, she offered to come bring me medicine in my dorm.
My other memorable professor taught a class in African-American studies about the role of religion in the civil rights movements. In class, he would say the most off-the wall things. He was also extremely cynical. He would constantly remind us that he knew we were putting our papers off until the night before. Best of all, he had a scale of profundity by which he graded papers. As he once said, “the shorter the paper is, the more profound it has to be.” I will miss these two professors immensely.

The classes for the most part were not terribly difficult. Certainly, they were not much harder than the classes I took in high school, although my course load there was quite rigorous. I took seven classes in high school, while I only did three per term at Dartmouth. The classes at Dartmouth were probably a little more intense; it was common for me to have a fifteen page research paper due at the end of each term in my humanities classes. Overall, the work was nothing I could not handle.

College is not all academics however, and it is important to discuss the social aspect too. I was privileged to have good friends from very diverse backgrounds. For example, my debate partner during the last part of the season was Indian-American, while the rest of the team had Pakistanis, Americans and Brits. I have met people from all 50 states including Montana and Virginia and Alaska. It is interesting to hear stories from people who have done all sorts of interesting things, and who have had such different lives.

At the same time however, I sometimes found the intellectual experience outside the classroom a little wanting. Dartmouth has some of the brightest students in the country, and yet it was pretty rare for me to have intellectual conversations. People seemed more interested in getting drunk at fraternity houses than they did in carrying on conversations with each other. Perhaps, as I spend more time at the school, I will find more people who enjoy engaging in such conversations.

Similarly, there seemed to be subtle divisions by class on campus. Everyone talked about racism and homophobia, and sexism, but no one seemed to care much about classism, which was just as serious an issue in my view. As a kid from a middle class family, I often felt like an ambassador from another country watching kids spend hundreds of dollars at restaurants, or talk about their vacation plans in Europe for this summer. I can only imagine what it must be like for the very small number of kids from poor families.

On another note, the weather took some getting used to. I am from Indiana, and have experienced cold and snow before, but never on the scale that I did at Dartmouth. The first snow came in November, and the snow did not completely melt until mid April. It was bitterly cold as well. I remember having to walk to class in the morning in negative 20 degree temperatures. At many points, especially in the middle of winter, this became very depressing. Junior year, I will try to study abroad in France so as to avoid this.

Next fall, I am going to study abroad in China. I will be a student at Beijing Normal University studying intensive Chinese. During my free time, I hope to explore the city some more. This will be my first time outside of the country, and I am extremely excited. When I come back, I will formally declare a major. I expect to double major in Chinese and history.

Next year, I plan to publish on this blog much more frequently. In addition, I will be posting periodically throughout the summer. Thank you to everyone who has read my posts this year.