A Cozy School and a Long Commute

Today wasn't the best of my days, but that doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy myself.  The cohort and I visited Dartmouth today in Hanover, New Hampshire, a nice, cozy, little campus with a great feel and look to it.  Getting there and returning did take approximately four hours, however, with a long shuttle ride from Boston to the college after the hour long Amtrak ride to Boston.

Lobster Club

The day started with the standard early 5:30 AM alarm and us walking to the train station here in Providence.  After the ride we grabbed a quick breakfast at Au Bon Pain while waiting for our shuttle to arrive.  When we arrived in Dartmouth, I was blown away by the natural feel and beauty of the campus.  We had a brief wait under the shade of some umbrellas until we entered the Pine Restaurant in the Hanover Inn. Our lunch was situated in a private room in the corner of the restaurant where we were greeted by Dean June Chu.  We had a quick conversation with the friendly Dean when Fermin Liu, AJ Dillione, and Charles Park arrived, all of whom were rising seniors at Dartmouth. Unfortunately, Assistant Director of Admissions William Corbett could not join us.  Fermin is a major in government, gender studies, and geography while AJ is a football player majoring in sociology, and Charles is an economics major.  For the meal, I ordered a lobster club sandwich and had a strawberry shortcake for dessert.  The lobster club was a burger-like meal filled with lobster, lettuce, tomato, and bacon and was complimented with a side of fries.  The shortcake was sweet and delicious, but unfortunately my stomach refused to eat it all as I was more or less full.  During the lunch I learned that Dartmouth offers a system of modified majors to allow for more specific or a more broad field of study and that they have a term system called "Sophomore Summer" where students are allowed one semester off during their sophomore and junior year to look for internships and complete their required courses during the summer of their sophomore year to make up for it.  There were many other things that I learned about the school as well as the current students, but it would be a bit too lengthy for many of your tastes.

After lunch, Dean Chu was kind enough to guide us to the admissions office where we would start our campus tour.  Our cohort split between the econ group and biotech group for different tour guides who majored in our particular subject that we'll be studying in.  Arnold, Jing, and I went to a tour guide named Jess who is currently majoring in a pre-health field.  She gave us a good tour around the campus as well as a few anecdotes about her experiences in each building and her time at Dartmouth.  When the tour finished we met up with the econ group and went back inside the admissions building for a information session with an admissions officer Ms. Adrea Belin.  After a few questions, I found that the admissions process for Dartmouth is different from Yale's significantly.  For instance, they don't emphasize transcripts as much as Yale and don't try to fill specific roles of students when looking at applications.  Following the Q&A, we said our goodbyes and started our trip back home.

Once we were back in Boston, we had an extra two hours for dinner, so we decided on Chinese food in the local Chinatown at a restaurant called Bubor Cha Cha.  The food was really familiar and reminded me of home with dishes such as walnut prawns and sweet & sour pork.  After our nice dinner, we headed back to Providence by Amtrak and went home to our hotels for some rest.

Amidst all of this fun, however, I did notice that by the end of the day my body wasn't feeling right.  My stomach isn't digesting food normally for whatever reason and I felt a slight fever coming onto me.  I'm guessing I either got food poisoning from something or I simply am not getting the time to digest my food as we are constantly moving and travelling.  As a result, this blog may seem a bit short on information and such and I deeply apologize.  Perhaps for the next batch of ILC students a break between all of this chaotic travelling can be scheduled.  Nonetheless, I am still looking forward to our visit to Brandeis tomorrow and will be checking out for the night to get some rest.  Until next time.

The buildings in Dartmouth really complimented the natural scenery very well.