Good thing we were allowed a head start in high school…

With move-in day fast approaching, though not as quickly as yours, I’m finding myself swamped with information to read, forms to fill out, and classes to research. This would all be fine if it weren’t for one small detail: the online system’s interface, or should I say, interfaces. As of today, I already have three different online accounts, one for standard information, one for academic info, and another for payment. I have no doubt in my mind that Dartmouth will be kind enough to aument this list for me. Complaints aside, I’m sure having separate systems will make it easier for me once I get the hang of it.

My tangential intro leads into what is causing the most confusion of all: placement tests. Most of this panic is being caused by the science courses. Luckily (ironically), students in the years to come will not face this problem nearly as much since Dartmouth will stop accepting AP credit starting next year (bummer...).

First and foremost, havoc is being wreaked by biology. Do we take Bio 11, the normal intro course or skip right to Bio 12, which consists of specialized, Foundation courses? Usually confusion ensues when there is too little information, but not at Dartmouth. There’s a good list of suggested prerequisites to help you decide your bio placement: 5 on bio AP test, 5 on chem AP test, an optional placement test, and about four other benchmarks. I think our indecision boils down to whether we want to be safe and relearn a lot of material, or push ourselves, possibly beyond our bounds. Chemistry and math classes are posing similar problems. We can use our AP credit to test out of them, but do we want to?Here’s a list of what we get for which scores.

Luckily, with the quarter system moving so rapidly, great classes, easy classes, and awful classes alike will all be over within 10 weeks, gone as quickly as they came. Furthermore, we have an add/drop period of a week right after orientation where we can do just that–add and drop classes with wild abandon. Several schools that implement this system call this a shopping period. At Dartmouth, I think only first years are allowed to do this their first term so it’s really a one time deal. Some of us will inevitably have to rely heavily on our advisers suggestions, which in some cases should be taken with a grain of salt (I hear).

Nevertheless, I am excited and enthusiastic about getting to choose my first few college courses in a few weeks. And now I realize I’m on a pre-med track… this should be fun!

Questionably sized fish in a little pond full of big ones: Dartmouth College

As you stated, going to IU will allow you to stay close with old friends while having an unending pool of fish from which to choose your new victi–I mean, friends. I have to say that I envy you in that respect. (Have I ever said that before?) Meeting with a West Side alum will be just a matter of walking to another dorm building for you.

I, on the other hand, will have virtually no one from West Side attending with me at Dartmouth, with the exception of one senior who will be graduating soon anyway. The closest West Siders will be at least a two hour bus ride away for me, though I’m not sure whether Harvardists and Princetonians will have time for a Dartmouth student (jk).

Thankfully, I was able to make a couple close friends during Dimensions, Dartmouth’s program in April for prospective students. The weekend featured nonstop activities, food, and presentations that were. (SPOILER! SKIP TO NEXT PARAGRAPH IF YOU WANT TO BE SURPRISED AT DIMENSIONS) A real surprise came when the upperclassmen gave a final show/musical for us ‘prospies’, or prospective freshman. In the middle of the rewritten “Hit Me Baby One More Time,” a bunch of prospies stood up from the audience and started singing along. Turns out that these thirty or so people that we befriended during the weekend were actually sophomores pretending to be upcoming freshman. MIND = BLOWN. So I think the point of the story is that I have to make friends but luckily I have some made? I don’t have a 40,000 people pond to choose from like you, though; Dartmouth has about 4500 total undergraduates.

On another note, I’ve been lazily getting back into reading grind, which, thanks to AP English, is all too familiar. This year, Dartmouth has given us a summer reading list of one book, which consists of The River Why by David James Duncan. I’m only a third of the way into the novel, but so far it’s rubbing off as a slightly more introspective yet crude version Moby Dick, missing in cast only the lunatic that’s chasing after a demon whale, though the search for knowledge and meaning of life is still ever present and just as elusive. Sadly, after AP English, I can’t just read a book for the sake of reading it and I either find myself not reading it at all or trying to extract the true meaning out of every page. It’s very daunting to say the least.

One hoorah for the quarter system!

One of the perquisites (and downfalls) of attending Dartmouth College is that I am on the quarter system, which the college appropriately and accordingly named the D-Plan. This means that we are unsynced throughout the year since you’re on the semester system; I haven’t made up my mind yet whether this is more of a good thing or a bad thing — kind of like how I feel about Miley Cyrus. But I digress. Being on the quarter system means I have four terms each year with 3 to 4 classes each term. With winter break has been accounted for, this leaves about two months and two weeks per term. Inevitably, classes are much more fast-paced, though the rigorousness of the coursework may arguably be offset by the fewer number of courses each term. Depending on the class, I’ll be having midterms about two or three weeks into each term. (Side-note, how can you mathematically have more than one midterm? MISNOMER ALERT!)

Other schools that are one the quarter systems include Northwestern and CalTech. I think that this schedule will play to my advantages because I prefer being intensely focused on fewer things than spreading myself relatively thin. Still, we’ll have to see whether this plays to my advantages.

All in all it’s really making for a bittersweet finale to the high school saga. Many of my friends, who are attending Purdue, are moving in this weekend and will start classes after a week long orientation. This leaves me with three extra, rather lonely but nevertheless free, weeks left. So it’s off to Chitown for my parents and me for one last weekend at the Shedd, Millenium, and MichAve before I leave for the East.