Freshman Experience

On Martenn's request, I'm going to write a little bit on some of my freshman year experiences. I know Martenn through the SEAD program, which stands for Summer Enrichment at Dartmouth. It's a program that aims to show promising high school students that college is an option for them. So it makes me very happy to hear that you asked me to write about college, Martenn. I hope it means you have college on your mind, hopefully from working on your college applications.

When I arrived in Hanover with my parents and all my stuff, I was pretty nervous to start meeting people. I didn't go on a first-year trip, so I didn't meet anyone through that. I knew of one other person who was definitely attending Dartmouth at the same time as I was. Her name is Sheila, and she went to high school with me. CAW! Seahawks fly together! It was reassuring to know that I would know at least one person, but I also had no idea how to get in touch with her. I'm very shy before I get people. Sometimes people don't believe me when I say this because I can become rather outgoing once I feel comfortable. Once I was unpacked and my parents left, I was sitting in my room alone trying to set up my email account. It would've been pretty pro-social and normal to wonder the hallways and introduce myself to new people, but I was pretty terrified. I pretty much kept to myself and went off to dinner by myself with every intention of sitting down alone to eat. Now that I look back on the experience, it seems absurd but it was very real then. Very Luckily, a lot of people that lived on my floor were eating together and called me over as I was making my way to the very back of the dining hall. I have to say, I really enjoyed living with the people on my freshman year floor. We called ourselves "Little 1". I found it myself feeling very comfortable quickly. Consequently, we had many dinners as a floor after that. I'm still very good friends with some of the people on my floor. It took me three full years before I started getting sick of the food, still not sick of them.

It's kind of funny how much chance there is in such encounters. It was as if I were destined to be friends with these people. If I hadn't seen them at dinner that night, I would've likely had dinner with them a different night or struck up a conversation in the hallway some other time. It's crazy how much relationships are affected by proximity. You're basically given a group of people to befriend. Of course, sometimes it doesn't work out so well. Clashing personalities and differing interests might cause some people to stray from the over group. Also, previous acquaintances might allow someone to join in on a floor other than their given floor. For the most part, though, it just works out somehow. It's pretty amazing.

Another really great freshman year experience that really cemented a friendship for me was a bocce tournament. Bocce is a game that originated in Italy I believe. It's a lot like curling, which might be even more obscure. If you don't know what curling is, I apologize. You're missing out. The point of bocce is for two teams to alternate shots and try to get their ball closest to a target (the palino, a small ball a little bigger than a golf ball) without touching it. It's a great game and it helped me to get to know a friend even better. I also got to bring home a sick trophy and the title of Dartmouth Bocce Champion of the one and only tournament to date.

Devin and I saw a post for a bocce tourney on our way back to the dorm one day and decided to enter a team. Our team was very inexperienced and kind of an unexpected group. Aside from devin and I, there was Jeffrey who lived on the second floor and Ji who lived across the hall from me. Jeffrey is personable and outgoing. Ji can come off as very intimidating and mean, but he was a great guy. I never had a bad experience involving him. We beat these frat boys in the finals who were dressed up as if they were about to play croquet. It was somewhat improbable, but well deserved. Devin's grandparents got him a really nice bocce set after they heard about the win. I still have the rope they used to mark off our court and obviously the bowling trophy. I'm really glad we decided to do that. Shortly after that, Devin and I decided to room together the following year. The rest is history. I wonder what would have happened to our friendship had we lost...