Life@TheD

Colleges & Universities A-Z Dartmouth College
1

<p>A few questions for current students:</p>

<li><p>Outdoor activities - are the outdoor options and activities (camping, hiking, swimming in the summer, etc) as abundant as they are touted? Do a good number of students take advantage of them frequently?</p></li>
<li><p>Academics - More or less difficult than other Ivies? Of course most D students have never attended another Ivy, but what do you all think about the academics: overly stressful? Demanding and rewarding, but not life-consuming? Too easy (I doubt anyone will say this)?</p></li>
<li><p>Academic competition - Is it cutthroat like some top schools?</p></li>
<li><p>Weather - I’m a Central Florida guy, but I’m ready for COLD! I’ve seen snow but twice, once in NYC and the other in Rochester, NY… Neither time was overly cold though. In NYC, I believe the temp was around 20s and I was bundled up in so many layers I looked like a penguin. Am I in over my head with the weather???</p></li>
<li><p>Campus - I’ve had trouble finding good pictures of the D campus online. I’ve looked at photos of Cornell and think it’s absolutely awesome. Any comparisons to the Dartmouth campus? Or, even better, any pictures you all have taken?</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Thanks! Just so you all know, the other schools I’m looking into: Bowdoin, Bates, Colby, Cornell, Brown, and UF (safety).</p>

2

<p>Dartmouth image gallery</p>

<p>[Dartmouth</a> Image Gallery - Seasons at Dartmouth](<a href=“http://www.dartmouth.edu/~gallery/seasons/]Dartmouth”>http://www.dartmouth.edu/~gallery/seasons/)</p>

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<p>From what my D tells me it is not cut throat at all. You are your biggest competition.</p>

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<p>D tells me all of the time I am a wuss for complaining about the cold. When she comes home, she rarely wears a coat, she throws on a fleece (sometimes a sweater and a fleece) because the cold days here are so much warmert than new hampshire.</p>

<p>Adacemics- it is what it is.. I think there will be some courses that will be easier than others. D has had many writing intensive courses, but she has been able to handle it. It won’t be a cake walk and you will have to crack a book.</p>

3

<p>Thank you - that photo gallery is awesome!!</p>

4

<ol>
<li><p>Yes to the first part, not sure to the second. I have friends in the DOC and I have heard a fair amount of talk about excursions in the outdoors, but I personally am not a huge outdoors guy so I don’t know much about this - the extent of my experience has been the orientation DOC trips, and a bit of sledding at the pond.</p></li>
<li><p>Demanding, but I’d say there’s hardly any competition. I get blitzes (emails) all the time from people I don’t/barely know in class asking if anyone’s interested in studying together. The only stress there is is that which you put on yourself, which is frankly quite a bit.</p></li>
<li><p>I guess see above?</p></li>
<li><p>Put on a lot of layers and you’ll be fine. It’s purely a matter of adjusting to the cold - first few days I was cold, and after a while, 40 degrees feels warm enough to go outside without a jacket.</p></li>
<li><p>Sorry, I don’t have any decent pictures. I’ve personally found them to never really capture what a campus looks and feels like anyway - this was true for all the campuses I visited, and Dartmouth as well.</p></li>
</ol>

5

<p>It’s interesting that you’re really afraid of the cold and you want to apply to Cornell, Bowdoin, Bates, and Colby as well. I don’t mind the cold, I’m from NYC. It does get cold a lot earlier and lasts longer and snows more than in NY.</p>

6

<p>It’s not that I’m afraid of the cold… I definitely want a drastic change from the Florida life (It’s been low 70s lately and this is considered fairly cool… up until a cold front on Sunday it was mid 80s).. I know a lot of my friends here who are just so sick of sweating in January and wearing jackets 3 times a year. I just want a huge change, which is why my choices are some (very very) cold schools.</p>

7

<p>FLORIDA! whoot!</p>

<ol>
<li>Outdoor activities - are the outdoor options and activities (camping, hiking, swimming in the summer, etc) as abundant as they are touted? Do a good number of students take advantage of them frequently?</li>
</ol>

<p>there are a lot of very active people on campus. on my floor alone, several people have gone and climbed a mountain, hiked, kayaked, et cetera for the weekend. i personally haven’t, but the outing club is very friendly, and it’s quite common to do something through them.</p>

<ol>
<li>Academics - More or less difficult than other Ivies? Of course most D students have never attended another Ivy, but what do you all think about the academics: overly stressful? Demanding and rewarding, but not life-consuming? Too easy (I doubt anyone will say this)?</li>
</ol>

<p>the workload is doable. three courses (two if you drop, four if you add) for ten weeks is pretty intense, but it’s fine. you have plenty of time, even if you have a couple of activities going on. classes are awesome, and small (even some intro courses). my spanish class had 13, my required writing class (writing 5) had 18 (the max) and my econ class had 34ish. (it’s the most common major, and a very common course, with four sections.) as far as it being easy? it really depends. you have some distribs to get out of the way, but if you want to avoid certain ones like the QDS (quantitative and deductive sciences) you can just take a linguistics class (which counts.) they also have literature courses geared towards science people, and science classes geared towards humanities people. </p>

<ol>
<li>Academic competition - Is it cutthroat like some top schools?</li>
</ol>

<p>people here are really friendly. it’s VERY, VERY, VERY common to have people gathered in rooms, common rooms, libraries, et cetera working TOGETHER. it’s pretty awesome. not at all cutthroat, or at least i haven’t experienced it. people genuinely want to help out. you can always ask the whiz in the class.</p>

<ol>
<li>Weather - I’m a Central Florida guy, but I’m ready for COLD! I’ve seen snow but twice, once in NYC and the other in Rochester, NY.. Neither time was overly cold though. In NYC, I believe the temp was around 20s and I was bundled up in so many layers I looked like a penguin. Am I in over my head with the weather???</li>
</ol>

<p>lol… i’m from south florida! the weather is completely different, dude. but i rather prefer it over our humid, humid days. sure, it’s gotten cold (it snowed before thanksgiving) but you can avoid it much like you can avoid the heat in florida. in nh you dress in layers… the buildings/dorms are usually warm… so unless you WANT TO be cold…</p>

<ol>
<li>Campus - I’ve had trouble finding good pictures of the D campus online. I’ve looked at photos of Cornell and think it’s absolutely awesome. Any comparisons to the Dartmouth campus? Or, even better, any pictures you all have taken?</li>
</ol>

<p>i think this has been addressed already. but, the campus is awesome! even when there’s green everywhere! lol</p>

<p>as far as UF… eww. the campus is huge, and from what i hear from everyone, the classes are huge!</p>

<p>the only other school on your list i applied to/was interested in was brown. but i’m relatively conservative and wouldn’t survive at brown :slight_smile: </p>

<p>that one’s thing i <3 about dartmouth. there is actually political diversity. it’s supposed to be “the most conservative ivy” … but that just means not everyone is a hippie… :)</p>

8

<p>Ditto to what everyone else said, except that I feel the need to emphasize once more that academics at Dartmouth are not cutthroat or competitive in the slightest. Sure, everyone wants to do their personal best - but everyone is also generally willing and wanting to work together. It’s truly an amazing environment.</p>