An Option or Two...
The decision to move off-campus was a natural one for me to make. After two years of intensive dorm living in the Choates, I really wanted a change. My involvement in the dorm and in the Choate program was extensive: I was a dorm chair and an undergraduate adviser, and I worked as a coordinator for the Choate Residence, planning and running various activities for the other residents. Although I loved it, the energy and enthusiasm I had as a first-year student dwindled by my sophomore summer. I really was burnt out. And the D-plan added to the erratic lifestyle because the dorm was a different place every term. While initially the transition from term to term was socially stimulating, it lost its novelty after a year and a half. The lack of cohtinuity became tiresome rather than a of social extension. As my friends began to emigrate to various parts of campus or left for L.S.A., F.S.P., and leave terms, I began to want a more peaceful, stable living arrangement. That's what I've found living off-campus. I don't miss the institutionality of dorm life, although I do miss my friends. But I'm really satisfied with the change. Now, when I go home at night, I really am going home.
LINDA BEANE '84
Living in a sorority is somewhere between living in a dorm and living in an apartment off-campus. All sixteen seniors residing in Sigma Kappa this fall are friends. Although I share my room with only one sister, I feel as though I have 15 roommates. There are always sisters studying in the library, lounging in the living room, watching television, or baking in the kitchen. There's always someone available to assuage the disappointment of a bad test or to calm frazzled nerves before a big interview.
Of course, the living situation at Sigma Kappa is not without its disadvantages. We pay a price for our close friendships within the house secrets are few, and privacy is rare. All in all, though, benefits outweigh disadvantages. There is warm and supportive atmosphere at Sigma Kappa, along with the bond of common pride in our group and in our house.
KATHY BATCHELDER '83
Not unlike other forms of College housing, fraternity living has advantages and disadvantages. Unfortunately, a frat brother living in his house has less contact with new people than a dorm resident has. For that reason, in my fraternity, Sigma Phi Epsilon, almost every brother is participating in one or more extra-curricular activities as an "outlet" to new people. Living in my fraternity is desirable financially (compared with dorm rents). Unlike College housing, fraternity living does not place boundaries on one's living space at the room door. To feel at ease living next to a brother is an overtone of the social commitment one makes upon pledging. Fraternity living often is mistakenly seen as being extemely rowdy by Dartmouth students (who see Webster Avenue only on weekends). Fraternity residents have the same stake in a Dartmouth education anyone else does, and they must work to attain academic results so weekday noise does not necessarily exceed that of dorms.
JEFF THARP '83
The Celestial Bunny hunches on a hillside in East Thetford, Vermont, nine miles from Hanover. It is worth the daily ride to and from the 60year-old farmhouse, even though the dirt roads prematurely age cars, especially our Volkswagen, which liked hugging trees once too often. Four of us live here, enjoying the fields, a halfacre garden, apple trees, a 30-mile view of the hills, and, oh yes . . . the bunnies. We have a burrow of them. More bunnies all the time. Now that the squished Beetle is a permanent driveway fixture (neighbors slowing, craning necks as they drive by, one nearly crashing into a maple tree), the bunnies have turned it into a hutch.
The C.B. is a welcome escape from Hanover. It is true rural life. Even studying slows to a humane level. The neighbors, though, do not know quite what to do with college students. Moonlit night walks flush farmers with shotguns, and my motorcycle jacket does little to ease their minds. (They prefer us in our overalls and not playing hackisac on the front lawn.) But they are friendly, just used to their ways, like us all.
Winter is on its way now, and we have stored up three and a half cords of wood. We are waiting for the first snow. The bunnies are at the front door, luggage in paws, scarfs around their necks: "Mind if we move in for the winter?" A houseful of quiet nibbling.
KIRK GLASER '83
