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| Bright | I'm only in my second year here and already my spirit is broken. The weather is fairly miserable, the social "life" is non existent (unless you consider covering your ears to block out the shitty music while trying to rub past sweaty drunken idiots in a dingy basement a good time), there's nothing within walking distance or even within a reasonable driving distance that is fun to do, everyone is miserable but no one wants to admit it, and the academics are brutal. 8-10 week terms is NOT something good, trust me. Everything here is grade-driven, not based on whether or not you're actually learning and understanding the material. The profs aren't too horrible, at least if you check the Student Assembly website to avoid the crazies (which can't always be done, depending on your major).
In short, read the other negative reviews. That guy that warns about his experience reflecting yours? Yeah, it will, trust me. | Campus Aesthetics: B+, Social Life: F |  | | |
| | Mar 05 2009 | 2nd Year Male --
Class 2011 | | Blog it!Blog about this comment from your webpage or Blog, or MySpace account:
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| Quite Bright |
Graduation '05, most of my classmates had tears in their eyes. They just had the best four years of my life. They would miss their friends. They would miss the college they loved. They were already getting nostalgic. I had tears in my eyes too, but for a different reason. I had the worst four years of my life (for various reasons that I don't need to mention in the alumni survey) and now there would be no chance to change that.
But I thought, oh well, that's over. Time to get on with my life. I moved to the west coast (Where I should have gone to college to begin with. I am from the midwest and I had always had the idea I'd end up here, but decided on going to Dartmouth because I thought it might be a good idea to spend some time in the east before moving west. Get my bases covered, if you will.) I applied for white-collar jobs, and watched in horror as I was rejected by every single one of them.
I had been told that going to an Ivy League school will guarantee you a good job. It will guarantee you getting into a good grad school. All misconceptions (I don't want to say "lies," because I don't think that the people who told me were intentionally trying to lead me on) that a naive high schooler believed when he decided to go to Dartmouth. It's not even that I was a bad student or anything. I studied hard. I had an alright GPA (My average was between an A and B. It probably would have been better if I wasn't so damn miserable the entire time.) and did very well on my GRE. But after all this happened, it kind of broke my will.
People out west don't even know what Dartmouth is. When my friends and I get asked where we went to school, it goes something like...
Friend A: UCSD.
Person: Wow! You must be very smart!
Friend B: UCLA.
Person: Whoa! You're really smart too!
Me: Dartmouth.
Person: Oh...ok. What's that? Is it a junior?
This wouldn't bother me *nearly* as much if the people making the employment decisions didn't have the same kind of mentality. Seriously.
So now here I am, still working at Starbucks, two years out. Granted, it's not a bad job. I have fun here. It's a source of income. It doesn't quite pay the bills and I'm still relying on my parents for help. Not sure how much longer this can go on.
So here's the deal. Not only did I have a miserable time in college, but I can't help but fear I screwed myself over for life by going to Dartmouth. I wonder if it's possible to relinquish my B.A. and just redo my undergrad at UCLA or something. Seriously.
It's such trite advice but it's also so true and I wish I had taken it to heart. Do your research -before- picking a school. That's far more important than all the research you could ever do during school. Regardless of what path you take, success is not guaranteed -- but the rammifications of that path are. | Starting Job: Barista, Preparedness: -, Reputation: F | | |
| | Jul 29 2007 | Alumnus Male --
Class 2000 | | Blog it!Blog about this comment from your webpage or Blog, or MySpace account:
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Do NOT go to Dartmouth. Why?
-The winters are brutal. You must be willing to have your blood frozen solid...every day...and every night.
-The frats are over-emphasized and produce a bad (very bad) campus enviroment. With such an emphasis, you can't make friends normally, and almost have to join a frat or sorority to even survive socially.
- The class sizes are big, alot bigger than comparative universities. The professors are often arrogant, especially the newer ones.
- Hanover is a horrible college town. I thought I liked isolation, to bring the campus together, but Dartmouth is brought together to spite Hanover, it seems. Even to just get a serious coffee you have to drink about a half-hour. To do anywhat that every other college student considers normal you have to drive forever.
- the trimester system is extremely intense. There are always finals coming right up, so you never get a chance to relax. If you fall behind, because the trimesters move so fast, you're dead academically.
- You never get home with your friends, or brother/sisters in other colleges because of the trimester system. You don't even really get to unite your family because the vacations are different. If you don't mind a fractured family, one without unity and the family spirit, and you don't mind seeing your siblings once a year at most, go to Dartmouth. You will probably forget your family existed, or at least brothers/sisters in other colleges.
-The food here is pretty bad. You might like it for the first week, but it gets extremely repetitive and the cooking staff purposely makes better food at first to hook you in, then it deteriorates...alot. Comparative colleges have much better food.
- The price. The Dartmouth price tag is way to high for the quality (specifically the lack thereof) of education. Other college offer a much better bang for your buck.
-Ivy prestige??? A complete misnomer. A good job after graduating isn't guarenteed at all, and instead you have to rely on other stuff (work experience i.e.) to get a job. The Dartmouth education didn't land me a job I couldn't have gotten by going to even a bad state school. My friends had similar results.
-So where to go? Cornell and Columbia and UPENN don't suffer from what I've outlined above, so check out those. Also, UCLA and Berkeley in California offer the bang for your buck that I wish I had got, instead of depleting my family's treasury for a waste.
-If you want a good college experience, don't go to Dartmouth. My personal experiences will reflect yours. | Preparedness: -, Reputation: - | | | |
| | Dec 30 2004 | Male --
Class 2000 | | Blog it!Blog about this comment from your webpage or Blog, or MySpace account:
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| Bright | I had the chance to go just about anywhere... and I chose to freeze my ass off in the woods of New Hampshire for four years. Okay, so I'm getting a world-class education while I'm doing that, but still... I don't think this was the best place to go for me. In fact, I don't think this was a good place at all. There are too many annoying pseudo-political activists (and they get all up in your face and be annoying) and pseudo-hippies (they talk about consumerism like it's a bad thing, yet they don't wear all the cool stuff and act all high like REAL hippies do... they're everything bad about hippies without anything good about them.) Most students love it here... but I don't. | Education Quality: A+, Surrounding City: F | | | |
| | Jun 27 2003 | 2nd Year Male --
Class 2005 | | Blog it!Blog about this comment from your webpage or Blog, or MySpace account:
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