atrophicwhisper

This is the intellectual life at Dartmouth:

YouTube - Drinkin' Time

xmobile

omg that was the funniest thing I've seen. I wish i had been on that tour group. That video shows just how awesome Dartmouth is.

Gil

Intellectual life here is pretty weak, which IMO means that students work very hard to score good grades but do not do much beyond the syllabus. Then again, the same thing can be said about every other college... maybe except the great books ones (I've heard some good things about them; don't know how true though).

wisconsinguy

I would disagree with Gil--it's what you make of it. If you want to have an intellectual life, you can by all means have one: joining philosophy discussion groups, the World Affairs Council, Agora, etc. Some of the campus religious groups also have discussion groups based around philosophical and religious topics: the Episcopalians have regular discussions on modern science and ethics, the Catholics have discussions of Thomas Aquinas, faith, and reason, and Hillel hosts discussions on Judaism and contemporary society.

Add that to any number of lectures, dinners with lecturers, and so forth, and you can have an exceptionally strong international life if you so desire. Over my four years in Hanover, I had lunch or dinner with Thomas Pickering (former US Ambassador to Jordan, Nigeria, El Salvador, Israel, India, Russia, and the UN), Rita Colwell (former head of the National Science Foundation), Arden Bement (current NSF head), historian Richard Reeves, Pulitzer Prize winner David Shipler, Oliver Sacks, Nobel Prize winner Sidney Altman, Carol Moseley Braun, Howard Dean, economist Hernando de Soto, and far more.

So you can clearly have an intellectual life at Dartmouth--but it's what you make of it.

Strawboy

Okay. So.

People need to calm down. It's an Ivy league so obviously it's "intellectual" but think what you want. I'm not even going to bother to name the enormous list of things that can be regarded as "intellectual."

If you really don't think that it is...then you're probably not Dartmouth material, right?

Ps- the drinking time video is hilarious, but that's what it is, a humorous poke at Dartmouth made by the head of one of the comedy groups here. He's a great guy.

Dartmoose

Just another example that those who 'party' can be intellectual too:

One of the fraternities gathers once a week, cooks a home-made dinner, and invites a different prof each week to get to know them better. Their goal is to forge even more connections with their teachers. It goes without saying that there is intellectual discourse that goes on when discussing and debating with a professor on his/her field of study (and more).