@WiganUK : If you’re in the Choates, I don’t think you would have any floor space.
No room in my son’s freshman year room in The River either. Or, in fact, in any of his other dorm rooms.
I’d go with getting a nice mattress topper and a good bed pad to envelope the whole thing instead. Maybe upgrade his pillows. 
My son has rented full size beds twice with good results. However, he said there are 3 different student run companies offering the services, and the mattress thickness varies with the company.
Hi everyone - has anyone had a Dartmouth student interested in journalism? Particularly long form written or broadcast journalism? If so, were there any Dartmouth classes or professors or opportunities (other than writing for The Dartmouth) which were helpful?
@NorCalTootsie My S is in fact a journalist, with the same interests. After D, he obtained an MS from Columbia School of Journalism.
He never wrote for The Dartmouth, but his direction coalesced rather late in the game. He took a creative writing course with Jeff Sharlet that really made a huge difference to him. The focus was profile writing, but the subject had to be deceased. The name was “Raising the Dead.”
S knew a kid who now writes for The Onion who wrote for Jack O’Lantern at D. (Of course, he’s a satirist/humorist, not a journalist.) Another kid who also went to J school–Northwestern, in his case–has consistently been working in communications/PR for NGOs abroad. Another friend now writes for Fortune. Neither of them wrote for the paper.
Honestly, during the years I was reading it online, I really didn’t think The Dartmouth was a good paper, in terms of writing quality and editing. I don’t know what it’s like now.
@Consolation - thank you, that’s very helpful information. My S hopes to write for The Dartmouth this fall, but also feels ambivalent about its quality. I like the idea of a creative writing class. Would your S be able to share his thoughts about what helped him get into the Columbia program?
There was an excellent piece in the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine a few years back about student writing, and I wonder if it was examplars from the Jeff Sharlet class that @Consolation mentioned. Some of them were fantastic, and I would not be surprised if some of those students went on to pursue journalism as a career.
I’m bummed. I went looking for the piece I remembered and could not find it (it was written about elsewhere, not in the alumni mag), but Joe Asch at dartblog.com came up with his colleague’s post about it http://www.dartblog.com/data/2013/07/010963.php. Unfortunately, the domain where the pieces were posted was not renewed. :(( I’ll still say that taking a class from Sharlet would be an excellent choice.
Good news [assuming anyone cares, and I promise to shut up now] – the domain was a dot-org not a dot-com, so go to 40Towns.org if you want to read some excellent writing by Sharlet’s students. ^:)^
The D is just awful. Clearly, it has brilliant kids on staff, nearly all of which aced the SAT, so we know that they can write. But my guess, and its only a guess, is that publishing a paper 5 days a week is just too difficult for a student body the size of Dartmouth. As a result, the articles tend to be shallow and lacking critical analysis, particularly the OpEd pieces.
Compare the writing of The D to the student newspapers of other larger private Unis…
@AboutTheSame thanks for the links. Just reading up about Sharlet convinced me!
@bluebayou I suspect you are correct, that the frequency is impossible to maintain at a high level of quality.
The Hanover police have reported Joe Asch, the man who put out Dartblog every day, as being deceased. http://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2018/10/joe-asch-79-reported-as-deceased-by-hanover-police
A curmudgeon at times but a friend of the College who wanted to preserve its best features. That is extremely sad news.
S got the news this afternoon from a former colleague, including a screenshot of the suicide note Asch posted on Dartblog. He was friendly with Joe, and is very saddened. He said that despite his vendettas against various Dartmouth administrators and his penchant for going to war on all kinds of fronts Joe was a man who could be very kind to those he liked. Who knows what demons drove him.
I’ve been following his blog ever since my D first expressed interest in Dartmouth. While I may not have always agreed with his views, I appreciated that his criticisms came from a good place and with the desire to improve the College. I will miss his voice.
Active shooter situation at Dartmouth right now. Students told to shelter in place.
Shooter still at large?
Continuing to be told to shelter in place, shots have been fired at several places across campus
The college Twitter feed has more info.
Twitter says 2 people detained per police scanner.
The situation remains active, students still being told to shelter in place