THE DARTMOUTH FALL ISSUE
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2020
PAGE 5
Gap-year students reflect on decision to take time off BY JAYMIE WEI
The Dartmouth Staff
This year, many Dartmouth students have revised their ideas of what a college experience should look like. As the pandemic continues to upend plans, some students have opted to remain away from campus until the situation improves. From spending time in the great outdoors to caring for toddlers, learn during this academic year. One student, Zanna Gulick-Stutz ’23, has successfully avoided online class since the beginning of the pandemic. She took skiing while living with a friend in Teton County, Idaho. Over the summer and into early fall, she worked as a raft guide in Bend, Oregon. Now, after road-tripping throughout the western U.S. she has holed up in Lander, Wyoming, where she is taking a Wilderness EMT class. “I decided to do this as a way to continue working towards a goal and being in an educational environment,” Stutz said. “I can be in an in-person, hands-on place here — when that’s not available at Dartmouth right now.” After the course, Stutz said she will be heading to Salt Lake City, Utah to work as a ski patroller at Solitude Mountain Resort. She is excited to apply her newfound skills at “a bigger mountain that’s not in New Hampshire.” While Stutz has been using her time Alexander Fell ’23 seized the opportunity to extend his summer internship at a He was originally planning to return to Dartmouth in the fall, but due to the College’s COVID-19 restrictions, he working. Fell described his day-to-day work as a mix between investor relations and analyst research. While he started out the internship working remotely from home, he has since moved to Los Angeles to he said he gets to wear a lot of hats and has a say in investing decisions, which has been exciting for him. “I love what I’m doing,” Fell said. “Meeting cool founders, interacting with the hottest movers in the tech space. … [It’s] super cool to be a part of that environment.” Fell has not yet declared his major, but
of study doesn’t matter as much as work experience. He said he feels “really lucky” to enjoy his full-time job, and that he doesn’t need a Dartmouth workload to consume his time. “I felt like I was learning on the job, so
it, and get the full Dartmouth experience the year after,” Fell said. John Dwortz ’23 also decided to temporarily forgo school for a full-time he has been nannying a two-and-a-halfyear-old boy with learning disabilities. Instead of writing papers, he has been spending his time watching ocean documentaries, making grilled cheese and discovering hidden talents. “[I’ve learned that] I can actually pick poop up with my bare hands,” Dwortz said. “I’ve learned that I have a horrible singing voice but a great voice for lullabies. I’ve learned that I should read audiobooks for a living, because this kid is out the second I start reading Winnie the Pooh.” Dwortz also explained that he felt academically directionless his freshman year. He hasn’t yet chosen one subject to dedicate himself to, and he spent the remote spring and summer terms taking classes for fun. While he acknowledges that other people are able to put their heads down and power through online class, he knows that he is not that kind of person. “People are f—ing racing to get through [school],” Dwortz said. “For me, it would be racing towards, I don’t know when. And I ran in high school — typically, you wouldn’t start a race without knowing how long it is, because that would be really annoying.” Dwortz added that going into his second year at Dartmouth, he felt like he was there to get a degree instead of a toddler has helped him regain a sense of purpose. “[Picking a degree] feels so false, just really phony,” Dwortz said. “I don’t feel that way when I’m cooking this kid lunch.” While some students are feeling the pressure to pick a major, others have yet to begin the college experience in earnest. Renata Hoh, who deferred enrollment and now plans to begin college with the Class of 2025, cited mental health as her primary reason for delaying her matriculation at Dartmouth. An international student from Salvador,
SOPHIE BAILEY/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
Brazil, she was worried that online class would be exhausting and that she wouldn’t get the support she needed. She also believes she would miss out on valuable peer interactions outside of the classroom. “I really like to be around people and to meet new people — that’s something that I really value in education,” Hoh were attending online classes.” Since March, Hoh has been staying in Sao Paulo with 13 other girls in a republic — a student housing option similar to American sorority houses. She enjoys being around people her age and getting to watch movies or go on weekend excursions with them. Hoh said she has been keeping herself busy. She does public relations work for SuperMentor, an online site that helps Brazilian students who are applying to school in the U.S. She also works for Garotas Podem!, educating 12 girls about female empowerment and gender equality, and Aplica! Prep, the company that gave her a scholarship last year, by recipients. Hoh is also using her time to learn programming and calculus to prepare for college coursework, as well as engaging in relaxing activities like painting and drawing. She knows that while it’s important for her to have projects to
occupy herself during her gap year, she likes doing the work on her own time, as opposed to rushing through the educational system. “We go from elementary school to high school and then to college and then to work,” Hoh said. “Especially because there are girls here who are already it’s very good to have this break from all those responsibilities.” As an upperclassman, Breanna Glover ’22 knows the feeling of rushing through her education and not being in control of her time at Dartmouth. She describes her attitude toward school, extracurriculars and her sport as “Type A.” “I’ve just done everything that I thought I was supposed to do in the order in which it was supposed to be done,” Glover said. “It took a lot of reframing my perspective to be at a point where I okay.” Being a three-season athlete and therefore exempt from the sophomore summer requirement, Glover took the she decided not to enroll in classes. She and spends her time pursuing a fellowship through the Dartmouth Center for Social Impact, two research positions with the College and a part-time online tutoring
job. While Glover now intends to take a gap year, she still sometimes questions her decision. does that make me less of a person? Am I being too easy on myself ?” she asked. These are the questions that impacted Glover’s decision to take a gap year. However, Glover and many other students have found that there’s value in just taking some room to breathe. In Glover’s own words, “giving yourself time and space can be really powerful.” Given that COVID-19 is still raging across the U.S. and many parts of the world, and that the Dartmouth winter term is expected to be similar to the fall, more students may be considering taking a break from school. From her cabin in Wyoming and over spotty Wi-Fi, Stutz said that she has been recommending the gap year to those who have reached out to her. She thinks it’s great that more people are considering taking one amid the uncertainty that is school during COVID-19. “You don’t have to be doing something get to] look at a chunk of time and be like, ‘Hey, what’s important to me? What do I value? What do I want to dedicate myself to learning?”
Seven weeks in, town and students evaluate reopening plan BY COALTER PALMER
The Dartmouth Staff
The atmosphere was uneasy ahead of the College’s fall reopening. Amid a nationwide spike in COVID-19 cases, a number of peer institutions had abruptly reversed their reopening plans, sparking apprehension from alike as over 2,000 students prepared to descend upon campus. Less than two weeks before students were slated to arrive in Hanover, tensions mounted as over 150 professors called for the College to keep its operations entirely remote, back with a counter-statement that garnered over 1,000 student and alumni signatures. Ultimately, the College opted to proceed with its plan. Now, nearly eight weeks into fall largely hailed Dartmouth’s reopening as a success. Since July 1, the College has reported only 10 positive tests — or 0.03% of the 35,562 tests it has administered. Students, too, have voiced appreciation for the chance to return to campus — yet some have shared frustration with the College’s and town’s strict enforcement of COVID-19 policies. Hanover braces for impact Hinsley recounted a “tremendous amount of fear” among Hanover residents as the College went ahead with its reopening plan. “The Dartmouth experience [students] were returning to … on Sept. 1, was, of course, radically different than when they left,” Hinsley said. “And the amount of concern for the citizens — I don’t think people were aware of how much fear there was, and still is, in the community.” Hanover town manager Julia column in The Dartmouth over the summer decrying the “irresponsible behavior” of students living off campus in Hanover — likewise expressed reservations over the campus. She said she believed many students “weren’t necessarily going into quarantine or being tested upon arrival” and recalled one student telling her that they didn’t believe they needed to start quarantining
until all of their housemates arrived — an interaction that spurred a
Dartmouth’s initial quarantine period, Hinsley said he responded to a large gathering of students on the Green. This particular gathering, he we manage reducing the potential of said, provoked “a lot of concern and fear” within the Hanover community. each other and to the community,” College spokesperson Diana Lawrence declined to comment In the timeframe between the further on Hinsley’s claim, citing privacy concerns. and Dartmouth Health Services’ Hinsley also noted that, because ramping up its testing protocols Dartmouth’s plan had put students for on-campus through a students, Hinsley screening process said that he went “Obviously, Hanover prior to arrival, door to door, high school students and because having socially can’t be expected to the g athering distanced o c c u r r e d c o nve r s a t i o n s comply with College four days into with students guidelines, but the quarantine — a who had just point at which a r r i v e d a n d town seems to expect he said the data communicating to enforce those was “in [their] the town’s favor” — the same guidelines on expectations to risk of this large them. Hinsley Dartmouth students.” gathering had emphasized that i n n e a rl y a l l reduced. But interactions he this event still has had, students “ jeopardized” have been polite and have complied the College’s ability to have an with his requests. As students began to arrive on campus, some of the town’s original apprehensions began to subside. on town’s policies Over the past weeks, some students College’s execution of its plan to have also noted an emerging double bring 2,200 undergraduate students standard in the town’s treatment of back to campus, with Hinsley calling the plan “comprehensive” and Kevin Donohue ’21, who has lived saying the students’ return to campus has “gone quite well.” “It’s amazing to watch a plan — [developed by] dedicated and brilliant people who are committed to the institution and to the situation — work,” Hinsley said. “I’m beyond pleased that it has worked as well as it has, and it has worked beyond my expectation.” Griffin noted that the town has not dealt with many “really serious violations” of its 10-person gathering ordinance. She added that the College and town’s collaborative implementation of the “Community Expectations” agreement contributed to Hanover and Dartmouth’s low incidence of COVID-19. At the same time, Hinsley said that the beginning of the term On one occasion four days into
he sees a “dichotomy” in the way the town has treated Dartmouth students relative to non-Dartmouth students. He noted that he has heard reports of Hanover High School students practicing soccer without face coverings, in addition to “frequently” seeing high school-age students walking around his neighborhood without masks. “Obviously, Hanover High School students can’t be expected to comply with College guidelines, but the town seems to expect to enforce those same guidelines on Dartmouth students,” Donohue said. Donohue added that he has witnessed “unequal enforcement of the rules.” “It may have made sense of the beginning of all this, when Dartmouth students were coming from all over the country. But now that we’ve all been here for a month
and a half, it doesn’t quite make sense anymore,” Donohue said. Meanwhile, Hinsley defended the town’s management of the situation and treatment of Dartmouth students. “I’m not targeting Dartmouth students,” he said. “But I am targeting
beer cans and cups all over the yard, christmas lights, loud music and a ping pong table with a dozen beer cups still on the [surface].” According to Hinsley, many of these houses have had to be placed in quarantine because of exposure to COVID-19. “I’m thinking I was on the target there,” Hinsley said. Donohue said that this spring and summer, he heard about students getting “slapped on the wrist” for code violations, and called these consequences “fair.” This fall, with the town “clamping down” on restrictions, off-campus students seem to be adhering more closely to guidelines, Donohue said. Addie Green ’22, who lives downtown Hanover on a regular basis, said that she has noticed a are enforced when comparing where she is to Hanover. “I think Lebanon has been way more relaxed, in the sense that although they have similar rules, I don’t think they’re enforcing them as strictly as Hanover,” Green said. “My roommates and I are pretty good at following the rules as far as masks go, but I’ve noticed that in Lebanon, when I go into grocery stores, or I get takeout, everywhere I go there will be people without masks.” Green noted that while she has heard of instances of other households hosting “larger gatherings,” she thinks most students living offin response to the pandemic, as well as due to being “nervous” about losing on-campus privileges. “For the most part, I think people are sticking to tighter circles and not throwing parties,” Green said. Lebanon residents Karen and Tom Lanzetta ’74, who own a property in Hanover that they rent to students, said they were “happy” that Hanover “seems to pretty closely.” According to Tom Lanzetta, the town sent him and
his property manager a notice that detailed the steps he should take if tenants hosted gatherings of more than 10 people. These steps included needing to provide student names and information to the town, as a part of the town’s emergency public health ordinance. “They are concerned about housing for students in the community. And they’re making sure that we’re following their protocols and rules,” Tom Lanzetta said. In addition, according to Karen Lanzetta, the notice requested that the landlord share their residents’ contact information with the town in the case that a resident tested positive. In contrast with the town’s communication with residents, however, Lanzetta remarked that he hoped Dartmouth would be more proactive in communicating updates on the College’s situation not only to students, but also to community members. out information,” Tom Lanzetta said. “It would be nice if there was a little bit of push to get out daily or weekly communication about what’s happening at Dartmouth.” “An email once a week would be a nice, neighborly thing to do,” Karen Lanzetta added. For example, Tom Lanzetta said that he at one point wasn’t sure whether Dartmouth students could travel on weekends and then return to campus. Lanzetta soon found out about Dartmouth’s rules for weekend travel, but said “it would have been nice to have known that ahead of time.” In the interactions he has had with students when visiting downtown Hanover, Tom Lanzetta said that he has been “impressed” with student adherence to Hanover’s mask ordinance and gets the sense that students have been “responsible.” As the winter months approach, College will have to confront a new set of challenges. “It’s going to get trickier as things have to come indoors,” Griffin said. “Being able to hold so many of the events outdoors has been a real luxury … but once you start looking to bring more than 10 people together indoors, we’re going to get far less tolerant of those kinds of gatherings.”