Month: August 2021

This blogpost is the final part of the freshman FAQ series, and it will answer the following questions:

• “How can I pick a balanced course load?”
• “How can I choose classes while being considerate of my major and the liberal arts curriculum?”

Picking Balanced Courses: Workload

Before you select any course, read reviews either on layuplist.com or the course assessment portal. You can access the course assessment portal through Darthub, search “Course Assessment Portal,” click on it, and once you’re in, you can type the course or professor name into the keyword search. For example, “PSYC 11.” 

The course assessment portal does not have reviews of every course nor every professor available, but it is worth checking out as it will give you less biased reviews. Layuplist is great in that it has every course/term, usually the medians, and for most courses, it has reviews for various professors. However, it tends to be biased. If you see terrible reviews for a professor, try to ask upperclassmen (trip leaders, UGA, teammates, etc) if they have taken a course with the professor or if they know someone who has. They can give you more information and help you figure out whether taking the course is worth it. I would take reviews from 20S-21X with a grain of salt because many professors teach much differently over zoom than in-person. 

If you’re wondering where the name “layup list” comes from, at Dartmouth, a layup is considered to be an easy course. Layuplist.com has an option for students to upvote or downvote a course as a layup, but remember that just because a course is a layup for another student does not mean it will be a layup for you. Likewise, just because a course is a layup for you, it might not be a layup for another student. 

I advise you to use the course assessment portal and layuplist.com to gauge the workload of a course and find three with varying degrees of workload or two lighter workload courses with one hefty workload. Some questions you can ask yourself while figuring out workload:

• How many essays will I have to write? 
  • How many words/pages are they?
• How many exams will I have to take?
  • What is the format of the exam? 
  • How much time do I plan to spend studying?
• How many projects will I have to complete?
• How many homework assignments or problem sets will I have to do?
  • How often are they due?
• How many pages of reading will I have to do per class or per week?
  • Do I actually have to do the whole reading for little details, or can I succeed while skimming for the most important conceptual information?
• For language courses: How many times per week will I have drill? 
  • Note: Drill is an extra class, taught by a fluent student, that you take for language courses. For Asian Society, Culture, and Language courses, it is usually four times per week. For European languages, it is usually three times per week. 
• Will my professor be using all x-hours? How many times per week will we meet? 

Ultimately, the choice is yours, but please do not take three intense courses at once. Try to leave time for yourself. 

Picking Balanced Courses: Subjects

When picking courses, it is important to balance the workload and types of work. I find that one reading-and-writing-intensive course, one STEM course, and one creative class (though I am a Studio Art Major, so this isn’t necessarily applicable for everyone) is a good combination. Try to balance your subjects so that you aren’t doing too much of one thing (for example, two reading intensive classes might have you doing 500 pages of reading per week). This should be easy regardless of your academic path because we are required to take distributive classes. 

From personal experience, I find that the best way to transition to the academic rigor at Dartmouth would be to take two layups and one hard class. With this method, you’ll have a taste of what academic rigor really means here, but you won’t be overwhelmed by multiple classes at once. 

For your freshman fall course load, you should have your Writing 2 or Writing 5 course, one easier class, and one harder class in a subject you are interested in exploring. The workload for humanities tends to be more intense than Writing 2 or Writing 5, as you have to read multiple novels, but regardless, I encourage you to take a course with a lighter workload and one course in a subject that you are interested in majoring in regardless of its workload.

Choosing Classes While Being Considerate of Major and Liberal Arts Curriculum 

When planning courses, the most important thing to keep in mind is your goal after college. Are you going to medical school? Check out course requirements and suggestions for your med school of choice. Do you want to be an engineer? Meet with your dean, your academic advisor, or the department chair for help with planning your courses. 

If you aren’t sure what you want to do yet, identify a few departments that you’re interested in and see how many requirements there are for the major, including prerequisites. 

You will pick up distributive requirements as you explore departments, so you don’t have to take classes for the sake of getting distributives during your freshman year. If you do not have most of your distributives by your fifth term (in your sophomore year), then it’ll be time to worry about taking classes to get distributives. 

1. The bottom line is that your first priority should be your plans after college. 
   • Why are you here? 
2. Your second priority should be your major. 
   • What do you want to learn while you’re here?
3. Your third priority should be the liberal arts curriculum requirements. 
   • Which courses do you need to graduate?  

If you are worried about the liberal arts curriculum and picking a major that isn’t applicable to your goal after college, you can justify your studies to employers by saying that any major at Dartmouth teaches you how to think critically. For fields in which your undergraduate studies aren’t essential for your next steps, don’t worry about majoring in any particular department. Employers who hire Dartmouth students know that this is a liberal arts school. They want students who know how to think. 

Have fun choosing classes, and have a great first year! If you have additional questions, feel free to DM our instagram account @dartmouthacademicskills.

1. Be open-minded while being prepared!

The college experience is unique and personal in every aspect. In order to experience college to the fullest, I think being open-minded is extremely important. The open-mindedness not only applies to the new sport, academic field, celebration that you will try but also to the people you meet throughout the journey. I want to clarify that some preparation prior would not conflict with being open-minded. Instead, adequate preparation can enable you better experience new things open-mindedly and without unnecessary worries. I think the cold weather in Hanover is a perfect example to illustrate the point. Before coming to Dartmouth, I knew that Hanover winter would be freezing cold, especially to someone like me who has lived in a country with a tropical climate for the past 18 years. Packing some winter clothes and jacket is the adequate preparation that would allow me to survive the beginning of winter term and able to participate in other fun winter activities that I have never tried in my whole life, such as skiing (one tip I later found out to be helpful is that it might be better to not bring all your winter clothes or try to buy them from where you are because there will be plenty winter clothes thrift shopping opportunities during the end of fall term/beginning of winter term. You can get some amazing cheap clothes from there!). The cold weather is indeed only a small part of the winter term. The preparations that I did beforehand would allow me to explore and enjoy the new things open-mindedly. 

2. Explore as much as you can and take your time to adjust and find your places

Moving on to college from the high school bubble is tough, let alone coming from a different country and culture. Personally, being able to find my own place in any environment that I’m in is very important because it will ultimately make me feel comfortable and grow quickly. During these two years at Dartmouth, I learned that it takes time to find your own places and it is absolutely fine if we never find one. Everyone has a different pace and I think it is especially crucial to give yourself sometimes given that you are still navigating new cultures, living and learning styles, social life, weather, and etc... Navigation is key but the ability to stand up and have the courage to continue exploring and persisting is even more critical. If I can tell my freshman self one thing, I will definitely tell her to let go of the anxiety and wholeheartedly enjoy the process of adjusting, exploring, and navigating while maintaining her own identity and background.

3. Remember to keep in touch with the support system you have at home

With the crazy 12 hours’ time difference and the busy schedule, I found it difficult to schedule calls with friends and family back home. However, I soon realized midway through the fall term of my freshman year that maintaining the connection that I have back home is crucial for my personal well-being. Slight changes of schedule and efforts, such as waking up a little earlier during the weekend can easily make calling possible. These calls are indeed more than worthwhile. Sharing and hearing friends and family telling their recent encounters become great opportunities for me to recharge and rewind myself from the packed commitments. Moreover, sometimes it might be hard to share the difficulties and struggles that you encountered here at Dartmouth with the people beside you or you might just want some outsider perspectives or simply a listener who understands and knows you. In this case, I think talking to friends or family back home can be really beneficial.