Things I Wish I Had Known about Dartmouth Earlier

<p>As I was reading the “Ask a Current Student” thread, I thought about all the things that have taken me two years in Hanover to discover. I wanted to share some of them with you all but thought the “Ask” thread wasn’t the appropriate place… I haven’t been on here for months so if a thread like this already exists, please do direct me!</p>

<li>Bagel Basement - when the yucky DDS bagels aren’t doing it for you (they taste suspiciously like frozen bagels), this tiny bagel shop will do the trick.</li>
<li>Lou’s diner has the best corned beef hash, and breakfast in general (not to mention their pies!) - but avoid it on Sundays unless you want to hit the after-church crowd.</li>
<li>Boloco (a restaurant that sells wrap sandwiches) delivers!</li>
<li>You can buy birthday cakes with your DDS - they’re right by the cashier’s booth in Food Court.</li>
<li>Stock up on mixers at the beginning of the week at Topside, the school grocery store - if you wait until Friday, they’ll be out of them.</li>
<li>The big weekends start Wednesday night (if not Monday) - don’t expect to do anything those weekends; get all your work done the week before if you’re planning to do it at all.</li>
<li>There’s a cheap nail salon above Talbot’s.</li>
<li>Walmart and JoAnn’s are only a ten minute drive away - don’t tear up your sheets for a toga party. (I have a friend who used her Frette linens… yikes!)</li>
<li>Homeplate, one of the campus eateries, bakes their bread fresh every morning for sandwiches. And they have fresh mozzarella cheese at lunch!</li>
<li>You can get made-to-order smoothies at Collis Cafe, on campus - as well as stir-fry, omelettes, and amazing pasta.</li>
<li>There’s a Co-Op grocery store that’s only a ten-minute walk away from campus, by the hockey arena, and has a surprisingly good selection of cheese and fresh fruit.</li>
<li>If you call EBA’s (the pizza place that takes orders until 2 a.m.) at 2:30 a.m., sometimes they’ll let you have unclaimed pizzas.</li>
<li>But if that’s not possible, both Foodstop (in the gas station) and CVS are open 24 hours a day.</li>
<li>Molly’s has amazing lobster pasta. But if you just need some delicious carbs for a girl gossip session, you can get their incredible bread to-go for only like $5. My roommate and I used to do this all the time.</li>
<li>The movie theaters have student pricing.</li>
<li>No one will ever know if you have microwaves, candles, or any other prohibited item in your room - I say bring them. After seeing some guy friends set up a pong table in their two-room double, anything can be done.</li>
<li>Don’t bother wearing high heels to a fraternity basement, or nice shoes whatsoever - most people wear flip-flops.</li>
<li>Bella has a more lenient exchange policy than Juliana’s.</li>
<li>There are running trails alongside the golf course.</li>
<li>Carpaccio’s, an Italian restaurant, is a little on the expensive side but has an amazing maple sugar cheesecake.</li>
<li>There’s a Dunkin’ Donuts in the Foodstop.</li>
<li>Tie your Northface to someone else’s or find somewhere clever to hide it at a frat party - everyone has the same coat and tend to all throw them on a couch on the groundfloor. But make sure not to hide it in someone’s room as the door may very well be locked upon your return - I like to hide mine in a kitchen drawer as no self-respecting frat brother is going to drunkenly use a whisk or boil pasta at 3 a.m.</li>
<li>If it’s over 70 degrees, don’t eat anything perishable out at the Food Court salad bar - eggs and cheese, in particular, are left out all day and start to go bad.</li>
<li> The college offers some amazing gym classes - skiing, Pilates, horseback riding, sailing - but sign up early or the spots will be taken!</li>
</ol>

<p>There’s so much more but I have to run… best of luck to the '12s!</p>

<p>Dartmouth has a golf course? what about a driving range? </p>

<p>Horseback riding? are you serious? cool!</p>

<p>Very imformative, thanks =]</p>

<p>This is fantastic, thanks a lot!</p>

<p>O_o Wonderful!!!! Brilliant!! Thanks!</p>

<p>ha, i thought you were gonna say negative things. glad i was wrong.</p>

<p>26) Live off campus sophomore summer if you can find a place. Its awesome to have a fun house with 6-7 friends. My summer apartment friends are still my best friends years later.</p>

<p>27) Go on an LSA (language study abroad). The rewards are worth it, and you'll have an incredible experience in a new country. I am still fluent in spanish years later. </p>

<p>28) Take advantage of major related "research courses" that allow you to prepare research with a professor. The one-to-one interaction is an extraordinary way to become really integrated into a department</p>

<p>29) Take advantage of departmental scholarship and research grants. I got $10K to live in the pacific for anthro. Most majors do the same</p>

<p>30) If you don't want to do international research apply for a community service tucker grant. Almost everyone who applied is accepted and my friends who went to places like nicaragua had incredible experiences</p>

<p>31) Do a presidential scholarship. Its a great way to get close to a professor sophomore year. </p>

<p>32) Not totally recommended (lol) but write a thesis senior year. Its hard! work but its an incredible academic experience</p>

<p>(Do all of the above and you'll have one of the best undergrad academic experiences in the world)</p>

<p>Now for the less academic stuff to pad your GPA...</p>

<p>33) Take classes from visiting professors. They are almost always easier </p>

<p>34) Try and show your outline or a rough draft to a professor before its due. They'll help you and give you great advice</p>

<p>35) Figure out your writing style early on and try and come up with a great standard outline. Use it as the basis for all your papers, it will save lots of time.</p>

<p>36) Look up class medians. You don't want to take a sociology class with a B- median</p>

<p>37) (for those who understand)...NRO one class every term. You'll never know when you'll get unlucky. I have a friend who got a C in a random class without setting an NRO second term, first year and then senior year (when everyone's grades seem to be their highest) he ended up using it on a B+ because by then he was getting all As. He would have made Magna Cum Laude had it not been for that C and he wished he had a better strategy when he first started Dartmouth</p>

<p>38) Take classes you like! Major requirements aren't that restrictive, you'll still have plenty of room for great classes.</p>

<p>39) Sit in the front of big lecture classes (at Dartmouth this means 60+). The professor will notice you and you'll pay more attention. Conversely if you come in late sit way in the back.</p>

<p>40) Professors tend to be nice when it comes to extensions. Don't be afraid to ask if too much work hits you at once. It happens to everyone at some point during college.
Hope this helps!!</p>

<p>Great advice! Dartmouth is such an awesome school.</p>

<p>Whats an NRO?</p>

<p>non recording option. For those students in good academic standing, the Non-Recording Option is a process by which you may elect, under certain conditions, to exclude a grade in one (and only one) regularly graded course from your record in a given term. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.dartmouth.edu/%7Efrstyear/work/policies/nroption.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.dartmouth.edu/~frstyear/work/policies/nroption.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<ol>
<li>Don't be afraid to take an unpaying internship as you can make up the money applying for a grant through rockefeller or tucker. In addition the FA office now has something called removing financial barriers as they do not want students to miss out on great internship experiences that may be unpaid because students have to meet their contribution. Through this program FA works to make up the money you would have earned had the internship been a paid one.</li>
</ol>

<p>Its a Non-recording option. You set a grade and if you get below the set grade it shows as a "Pass." You hopefully use it on your lowest grade, which is set below your total GPA.</p>

<p>Here's an illustration. Say its last term senior year and you have a 3.4 GPA and a B+ is a 3.33. You want to use the "Pass" because even a 3.33 will bring you down (slightly).</p>

<p>From The Dartmouth yesterday:</p>

<p>"The faculty members present unanimously agreed to change the policy on courses taken with the credit/no credit option. The change will disallow a course with a grade of “credit” only from satisfying a general education requirement."</p>

<p>Is this in reference to the Non-recording option or something different?</p>

<p>Hi Ohmadre.</p>

<p>could not find the article, could you post a link</p>

<p>Under the NRO, a student set the grade s/he would like for the course. for example: you take a course, basket weaving, and you set your NRO to A-. If you get any grade below an A-, it does not show up on your transcript and it is not calculated in your GPA although your transcript will indicate that you got credit for the course.</p>

<p>It looks like with the change (which has subtly been taking palce for a while as I remember D telling me that you can not take courses that are part of your Major as NRO), the college will tell you what courses and under what conditions a course can be taken under the NRO (see link). So yes, there are now fewer courses that can be taken using the NRO.</p>

<p>spring NRO</p>

<p><a href="http://www.dartmouth.edu/%7Ereg/200703_nro.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.dartmouth.edu/~reg/200703_nro.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>summer NRO</p>

<p><a href="http://www.dartmouth.edu/%7Ereg/200706_nro.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.dartmouth.edu/~reg/200706_nro.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Hi Sybbie -
PM'ed you the link. Only a brief mention.</p>

<p>41) If you're looking for easy classes, don't just pick intro courses. Talk to your hockey, lacrosse, and football friends - they'll be the ones to give you priceless advice such as "Dude, [insert subject] 3 is easier than [insert same subject] 1".</p>

<p>42) Don't avoid parties at houses just because the house has a generally lame reputation. Just because a house is only worth visiting once a term doesn't mean you shouldn't go that once.</p>

<p>43) It's Green Key WeekEND, not Green Key Week. And if it is Green Key Week, then you better be sure you're ahead in all of your classes.</p>

<p>44) Don't even think about getting table as a freshman on the big party weekends. There's brothers and alums in front of you, and alums who like to cut back into the line after they lose.</p>

<p>45) Being a freshman girl could be your peak, or it could be a great launch pad for future fun. If you take too much advantage of your special status as the new girl at school, your class peers are going to resent you for the next three years and you'll develop a really nasty reputation (and probably a pretty nasty itch too). If, on the other hand, you're balanced about it, you could be one of those people everyone loves.</p>

<p>I completely disagree with number 43. Green Key started Wednesday and has still not ended!!!</p>

<p>
[quote]
I like to hide mine in a kitchen drawer as no self-respecting frat brother is going to drunkenly use a whisk or boil pasta at 3 a.m.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>You'd be surprised...</p>

<p>"19. There are running trails alongside the golf course." </p>

<p>Seconded. The running trails are truly awesome. I just found out about them two weeks ago, and I'm planning on running them for the 10th time today. If you're into running or hiking in the least, you owe it to yourself to try these trails out.</p>

<p>"11. There's a Co-Op grocery store that's only a ten-minute walk away from campus, by the hockey arena, and has a surprisingly good selection of cheese and fresh fruit."</p>

<p>I hate the Co-Op.It's overpriced, small, and a long walk from campus. If you can get to West Leb for groceries, definitely do so.</p>

<p>Can someone explain what Green Key Weekend is?</p>