Softball, Basketball and Science Oh My!

Despite a fairly remote location, no one will ever complain about a lack of things to do at Dartmouth. Concerts, art exhibits, dances, hiking, and sports to name a few. One of the team’s favorite activities is cheering for other Big Green athletes as they compete. While it’s important to support the various teams, it’s also great fun. We especially love outdoors sports maybe because we play inside... Rain or shine (or snow), someone from the volleyball team is cheering from the sidelines. This seems both fitting and appropriate for a school who’s motto is, “Vox clamantis in desert.”

Recently our whole team watched the Dartmouth Softball team compete for the Ivy League Championship. I went to the first game of the series and followed live stats for the others. The one thing that gets in the way of my being physically present at a game is the gravitational pull of classwork, labs, and exams, but I’ll save that for another blog. It was so exciting to be there as they played for their first championship title. The collective excitement and happiness was overwhelming, and the cheering from the crowd was deafening. Literally!

The day after this victory, about half the volleyball team participated in the basketball 3 on 3 tournament for the Haven. The comingling of players on different teams was both fun and humorous. While we all enjoyed ourselves, we were wisely reminded that volleyball is indeed our sport.

Now that we’re not in season and have a break from the travel, we took our support off campus. Last weekend while we seemed to scatter in all different directions, there were still members of the volleyball team cheering for another Big Green team. Four of my volleyball teammates went to NYC to support the Dartmouth Baseball team in their final game of the Ivy Championship.

At Dartmouth I have crossed paths with sports I've never played or seen, and while academics come before athletics, it’s much more socially acceptable to cheer for the hockey team than for a physics demo. But don’t get me wrong I really like those physics demos.

On campus my life involves a lot of science. Right now I’m in two lab classes one for organic chemistry and one for physics. So weekly I have 7 hours of lab just for classes. Lab can be both exciting and excruciating. In orgo we have to thoroughly prepare prior to lab because the procedures are complicated and we frequently are dealing with hazardous materials. 

This pays off though when you’re actually in lab and reactions work the way they should. For physics Emily A. and I usually are coming from lift so we grab dinner at the Hop then go straight to lab. These labs generally consist of cool experiments with finicky machines. This past week we had to create different circuits and boy did we have a rough time connecting things in the right way (it can be tricky with so many crossing wires).

In addition to the time I spend on labs for class, I work in a lab at Thayer School of Engineering. The project I work on focuses on breast cancer imaging. I have worked in this lab since freshman winter first through the Women in Science Program and now through Sophomore ScienceScholars.

One thing I love about Dartmouth is the opportunities like this that are much less accessible as an undergrad at other schools. Like I said before, there’s always something to do here be it academic, athletic, or otherwise.

Kaira Lujan '16