I am a senior. I am still letting that one sink in… As I am reflecting back at my Dartmouth career and thinking about changes I would like to make this year to get the most out of my remaining time at Dartmouth, I realize that there are three regrets that I have about my career at college so far. I would like to attempt to not have these regrets about my senior year and maybe, you can also learn from them to not make the same mistakes that I have made.
-
Not picking classes in the best way possible
This one is a tough one because in the moment, it seemed that I was making the right decisions but looking at it in hindsight, I definitely could have created a smarter schedule for myself. You do not need to go into freshman year knowing exactly what you want to study (trust me, I did not at all) and freshman fall is a term where it is definitely acceptable to try different classes, but I realized that I took a couple of classes that I should have tried not to. For example, I took six years of French in Middle and High School – but did not take any classes during my High School Junior and Senior Year, so when I arrived at Dartmouth, I did not remember that much and thus placed into French 2. The class was way too easy for me, because once I spoke a bit of French again, everything came back. Sure, it was an Easy A for me, but also a bit of a waste of time and I wish I had trusted myself more to speak up and immediately place into French 3 in order to be able to take other classes at Dartmouth.
-
Not forming better relationships with professors
I think this is where my German mindset kind of comes in, where it is not as normal for professors to have office hours and actually want to get to know us. The professors at Dartmouth do want to talk to us and get to know us though, and I am hoping to make better use of office hours in my last year and programs like “Take Your Prof to Lunch”.
-
Not taking opportunity of all the amazing programs Dartmouth has
Especially in Week 1, it is extremely overwhelming getting approximately a thousand emails per day (ok, maybe that is a bit exaggerated) and just being overwhelmed by all the clubs and lectures at Dartmouth. Plus, we are all always busy and trying to just make it through a very busy 10-week term. However, I do want to make an effort to go to all the lectures and events I used to look at it and think: “huh that would be interesting”, then not go and be sad about it.
Those were three of the things I regret not taking advantage of in my first three years at Dartmouth – but hey – I still have one more year to make the most of it!