The Student Woodshop at Dartmouth

Welcome to the May 2024 edition of the Dartmouth College Fund's student-produced vlog! This month's featured student is Micah ’25, one of many students who have found community in the Dartmouth Woodshop. 
 

Full Video Transcript

Hi, my name is Micah Green. I'm a ’25 from Indianapolis, Indiana. I'm majoring in mechatronics and have an intended minor in African and African-American studies. Some things I'm involved with on campus are, I'm a member of Dartmouth football. I am part of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Incorporated. I'm the co-president of the Dartmouth Black Student Athlete Alliance, and I'm a general body member of the National Society of Black Engineers.

My Dartmouth journey was straightforward. Really from the start. I knew that I wanted to do engineering right since I came here, and that's what I stuck with. I've been taking STEM classes ever since I was a freshman and I'm still on track to get my BE in four years. Something that really excites me about the Woodshop is just being able to have a vision of something and create either a gift or something useful for you and your buddies, and it's something that you see every day.

Something that we're currently working on this term is gifts for alumni who graduated from Dartmouth and were Alphas when they were here. They've done a tremendous job supporting us financially in our endeavors, whether it's Alpha Week in the winter or a lot of the stuff that we have planned for the spring, we are currently working on gifts for them.
I'd say there's two big misconceptions for the student workshop. One, everybody thinks you've got to be an engineering major to come in here and you don't. All you have to do is attend one orientation scheduling and you're oriented. You'll be familiar with all the machines and all the staff, and they can walk you through all the projects that you're doing. The one reason I think people should get involved with the Woodshop is because it's a really cheap way to learn how to do things yourself.

When you graduate Dartmouth and you're going to be a homeowner one day, being able to go around your house and fix certain things or kind of know what's going on behind the scenes in your structures that you're going to own, or your vehicles that you're going to own, that's something that's really important and comes in handy a lot more than people think.
And working at the Woodshop, you can see how hard it is to actually make something to specification and it actually allows you to learn the best ways to design something. So when you're putting stuff together and you're designing something together as an engineer for other people to create, you understand how things fit together, and it's a lot easier for your clients that you're working for.

Some of my more immediate plans are to go to graduate school and continue playing football. During my fifth year. I want to get my master's in aeronautical engineering and hopefully at one of my dream schools all the way across the country in California. After that, I am thinking about joining the military, the Air Force, or going into some defense company and just furthering research in that department. DCF has really supported me through all these endeavors and has been a great help in allowing me to have opportunities of a lifetime like this and live on campus the way I want.