What I'm Doing This Spring

The D-Plan and Why It Sucks

Dartmouth has this thing called the D-Plan which basically means that we have four ten-week terms (summa fall winta sprang) every year, and when you're a sophomore or junior you pick which time you just want to not take classes. In a lot of ways, this is the absolute worst. It means if there is a program you want to be really involved in, oftentimes you might not be able to be involved because you are "off" during a term where you'd need to be there. It means if you are friends with people who are graduating, you get one less term with them. It means if you are interested in building community with other classes, you better get your shit together during the terms when you are actually there with them.

But Also It Doesn't Suck

because it means that your relationships are built to kick some serious off-term ass. Your friends are real, the kind of friendships that won't die after being dragged through the Skype strainer for ten or twenty weeks. And it means that we get opportunities to do super-cool things like not take classes and spend a term doing something we are passionate about, which leads me to the point of writing all this.

What I'm Doing This Spring

I am not taking classes, and will be working at a school in upstate New York, through a program called SEAD (Summer Enrichment at Dartmouth). Over the summer, SEAD brings kids from five schools to Dartmouth's campus for a couple weeks of programming and community building and introduction to the college atmosphere and all sorts of other stuff that is awesome. During the rest of the year, to keep up the real, established relationship, SEAD sends one intern to each of the five schools. The school I am working at is huge, like 3,000 kids huge. It's cool because not all of them are part of the program, but because I am there, I am there for all of them. I am having a hard time writing about it now because I don't really know what it's going to be like and I don't want to predict what will happen, I just want it to start happening so I can learn. If I remember, I will update this once I get there and have a better idea of what I am doing, so that you can know what I am doing hopefully as well as I do.