The start of something new

I'm taking classes during the summer. No, this isn't because I'm in need of remedial classes, nor is it because I want to graduate early. My school, Dartmouth College has a quarter system instead of a semester system. I think these changes originated from my small college trying to fill the same number of dorm buildings with more students. This new system has several things going for it: fewer classes each term, quite a bit of flexibility in choosing which terms we want to be "on" or "off," and a class bonding period (all undergrads are required to be "on" in the summer of our sophomore year). But there are drawbacks: our terms and breaks don't often correspond with the schedules of other schools' semester schedules.

This has led to a few phenomena that aren't usually seen on other campuses–the campus is alive with students, and tour groups get to view college students in their actual, natural habitat. Sophomore Summer is also known for being more laid back– BBQs every weekend and quite a bit of river swimming, frisbee throwing, etc. Some students usually just take two classes instead of the usual three to make the most of this experience.

As for me, I've taken the complete opposite tack. I'm taking the usual three classes because Dartmouth has certain requirements on which we must take before we graduate. Basically, the requirements expose us to different areas that we may not be completely comfortable with. There's are requirements to take some sort of art class (Film studies, Photography, Art history, sculpture, calligraphy, etc.), some sort of science class (Biology, Chemistry, Astronomy, Biochemistry, etc.), some sort of literature class (too many to name), some sort of social analysis class (Government, economics, etc.), and several more. What usually happens is that all of the pre-med students have trouble filling their literature and social analysis requirements. Government majors have trouble filling science requirements. You get the picture.

I'm taking an introductory Engineering class, and an introductory Astronomy class to get several pesky science requirements out of the way. The class that I'm taking "just because I want to" is a public policy course titled "Contemporary Issues in American Politics and Policy." It basically explores all of the issues that make the news today: environmental policy, fiscal policy, health care policy, education policy, and more. It's taught by a very popular U Chicago graduate school professor named Charlie Wheelan, who is here every summer as a visiting professor. He's one of those legendary professors who gives you the sense that you're getting every penny's worth of the $40,000 tuition that students pay nowadays. He wrote a very popular book called Naked Economics and if you take nothing else away from this post, I suggest you buy the book and read it. The Wall Street Journal and New York Times become so much more intelligible once you read this book. The almost unanimously positive reviews speak for themselves. I took one of his classes last year and jumped at the chance to take another.

This particular class is unusual because it is guest-lecturer-heavy. Former and current movers and shakers of the economy and of the government come in and give both private talks to our class, and public lectures to the campus. Timothy Geithner (Dartmouth '88), the current Treasury Secretary came in last week to give a small lecture. The former NH senator Judd Gregg also stopped by. Depending on their schedules, Jon Huntsman Jr. (the Republican presidential candidate) is also slated to give a talk. So is Henry Paulson Jr., the former Treasury Secretary who's going to talk about (you guessed it!) financial innovation and regulation. It's promising to be a very interesting summer...