<p>haha btw Big Brother you are one of the few people who realize my name is Ajay without me telling them. Usually others ask me how to pronounce Ajayc :D</p>
<p>ive heard the social scene at dartmouth can be pretty intense/one-dimensional...is that generally true?</p>
<p>I agree with slipper. Smaller, more intimate schools are usually much more integrated than larger ones, even if their diversity figures are slightly lower on paper. Diversity on paper doesn't mean anything. The only way to tell if a place is really diverse is to visit for 2-3 days, sit in on classes, see what the social scene is like, and see if you would feel comfortable with the type of interaction among people.</p>
<p>in reference to exchange about whether international students can comfortably interact with non-international students, this varies from one individual to the other. not all international students are the same, and we clearly cannot judge from how they interact on CC or any other internet forum (sorry, but this is NOT an indicator for how people get along in person). Anyways, what I really think is that we cannot choose who we connect to. Some of the posters make it seem as though they are going to preempt making friends with people of their own race just because they don't to fall into that stereotype. but the truth is that's really stupid, because you hopefully aren't friends with someone because of their race, but rather because of their personality. ultimately by making the conscious decision to interact primarily with a group outside of one's own race (trying to be diverse), one is basically being racist against one's own ethnicity. i just think nobody should jump to conclusions about who they may or may not become friends with before it actually happens.</p>
<p>I honestly don't think it's a bad thing for people of the same ethnicity to mix with each other as long as its not done intentionally. sometimes people just feel more comfortable around people who share similar backgrounds</p>
<p>"I'd hate to do that you know hang around with people from same origin! Sheeeesh! I like to meet new people."</p>
<p>Are you implying that strangers of the same ethnicity aren't "new people"?</p>
<p>no. People of a different ethnicity are just a new and taste. Like that green polo they added to the while polo rolls a while back.the green polos were considered new polos :-)</p>
<p>
[quote]
"I'd hate to do that you know hang around with people from same origin! Sheeeesh! I like to meet new people."</p>
<p>Are you implying that strangers of the same ethnicity aren't "new people"?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I'd hate to do that you know always hang around with people from same origin! Sheeeesh! I like to meet new people. :)</p>
<p>Well why would I want to just stay in a small group when there are new people to meet and restrict my social interactions with people of same origin.</p>
<p>Well, I consider the white people who I haven't met yet to be new people, just like I consider the black people I haven't met yet to be new people -- but I see what your saying: making friends outside of your own race is fun and interesting.
edit: but then again, so is making friends inside your own race.</p>
<p>when did I say that I am going to neglect people of my own race? :p</p>
<p>ppl always say, why do all the black/asians/latinos sit together? Look around your own table and see why they shouldnt say the same about ur race</p>
<p>Yeah, same thing at my old high school. The white kids always scoffed at how the Asians stuck together...they never bothered to take a look around their own group.</p>
<p>For those of you complaining about it, why don't you take the initiative to integrate?</p>
<p>the race issue will be present at almost any school. the situation is perhaps a bit more unique at dartmouth because the population is smaller than at other schools both in terms of numbers and percentage. and the fact that 60% of undergraduate body is greek means that many minorities are in the greek system (although for males, at least, at unproportionately low rates). so while there is a lot of clumping, there's also more interaction between the groups.</p>
<hr>
<p>response to OP:</p>
<p>I loved dartmouth to the bone. the saddest day of my life was probably the day after i graduated when I woke up not on campus and realized that i will never wake up on campus ever again, that my frat brothers will never bang on my door in the morning and rouse me up for a game of ship or peking tokyo buffet. that i will never breathe in the mist filled air at 530am after an all nighter at novack, walking barefoot on the baker lawn and feeling dewdrops between my toes, never cross the green with the intent of going to class and instead be caught by a bunch of people lying out on the green and join them, in turn missing a midterm or something minor like that, never take a midnight walk out to the golf course or wine & cigars in the bema, never make the walk back from the river early in a winter morning blazing a trail of footprints on a pristine white tuck drive....</p>
<p>i loved dartmouth. the people, the infrastructure, i LOVED the campus. the library system, for a small school, was excellent, and we had no shortcomings if you were willing to wait for ILL (this is hearsay, i've used the library maybe thrice during college, twice using jones to check out DVD). there're so many resources and support programs for students that it's insane. you want to help out at an orphanage in Fiji in the summer instead of doing a paid internship? school will give you money for it. you want to write a novel in your off term and need money to pay rent and buy food? school will give you money for it. i dono, it was pretty awesome. a lot of nitty gritty things. my had been at harvard as a faculty for four years and then as a doctorate student for seven, and she's constantly amazed how much dartmouth has given me and my friends. dartmouth may not have the most money, but it's willing to spend it on its students. </p>
<p>I loved the frats. I loved the fratty atmosphere. I loved that everyone knew each other. Not just because we were a small school, but because of sports teams and fraternities and sororities and joint functions and just going out and meeting different people in different places all the time being tied together in the most beautiful bond of drunkenness. I loved that we were totally old school. Perhaps the things could have been "better" if we were not. But that's a competitive uniqueness of the school, i believed.</p>
<p>and a lot of other things i loved.</p>
<p>but what i did not love:</p>
<p>the typical small school junk. not much variety or depth of course selection. the peculiar topics you will never get much exposure in unless there's a prof who also is interested in that. I was a Government major and while I wanted to specialize in Comparative Politics, ended up doing IR because there simply were not many courses in CP that I wanted to take. I mean they make an effort, it's not their fault, it's just a limitation of a small school
At the same time, I can't agree with the fact that we have "the best profs". Many of our profs are awesome. At the same time, we have a lot of middling professors. Profs that are neither "great teachers" or "world class researchers". I do agree that we should focus on the former; we must to a certain extent capitulate our struggle to become a top university, which will only render us a "smaller, lesser Harvard". But because this is the direction taken by the administration, we have crappy profs stated above. Profs that focus on research but really can't get it done. Few "great" researchers will come to Dartmouth. And with this lack of talent, we throw at them not the most ideal environment for research. Things are not gonna get done. We need to, if we're gonna follow a model, follow the Princeton model.</p>
<p>Anyways, along with that, I hate the administration. Their direction is wack and supported only by a very vocal minority. But I think this is an inexorable direction. And it makes me shudder.</p>
<p>And about the vocal minority. I don't like the fact that there are so many people at Dartmouth that don't wanna be at Dartmouth. Essentially, 98% of the people that didn't get in ED. Certainly, many of them will turn and become Dartmouth lovers. But many don't.
And even the ones that "love" Dartmouth, as they say, will often want to change it.
These folks don't go out, that's fine. They don't make many friends outside their Dartmouth-hating circles, that's fine. They don't ever quite become mainstream, and that's perfectly fine.
But they will constantly criticize Dartmouth (which is fine) for the qualities that make it Dartmouth College, not JustAnotherMidSizedUniversity. And this is not fine. These are the folks that support the SLI, and even if not the SLI directly, other programs to deemphasize the greek system (did you NOT know Dartmouth was 60% Greek? should have gone to middlebury if you liked skiing).</p>
<p>Perhaps because we've got that self-image of being conservative, white good old boy school, our "minorities" (liberals, minorities, women who feel they are more oppressed than their fellow women who have no problems with the place as it is) are more vocal. But they're not very effective. And I feel that this only makes the place more polarized. Those that they fight against will continue to ignore them, and they will only continue to fight harder and harder, and still not be too effective.</p>
<p>I loved Dartmouth for everything it was and everything it wasn't. If Dartmouth had a law school, even if it was second tier, i'd go in a heartbeat. (Tuck, i dono, i'd be like 34 by the time I think about going and I don't think I could overcome the temptation to relive college, Old School style, and be a total laughingstock)</p>
<p>But Dartmouth is changing, I think for the worse. Maybe it'll still be what it is at heart. I mean we are, after all, the most enduring institution (whatever THAT means). But I'm afraid that when I send my kids off to college, i'll be crossing Dartmouth off the list.</p>
<p>I wouldn't have traded being a Dartmouth student even if they made me the emperor of the world.</p>
<p>But these days sometimes I wish that I had gone to Princeton.</p>
<p>that was beautiful. one of the best toilet reads ive ever had. and yes, i use my laptop in the john. and yes, i am high.</p>
<p>sologigolos : Good post, mate</p>