“You Need to Keep Your Eyes on the Prize from Day One”

However, the in-season schedule is still limiting in terms of the courses you can accommodate, making labs or participation in group projects much more difficult,” says Colón, an associate vice president for marketing at Eli Lilly. “My sophomore summer and senior spring, two terms when most students were able to enjoy themselves, were not a piece of cake. I had a lot less flexibility in the types of classes I could take and a higher level of stress.”

“It was definitely stressful,” says Lindsay Harley ’24 TH’24. “When I was starting my career, many of my colleagues were saying, ‘Oh, my gosh, working life is so much harder than college.’ And I thought, ‘What are you talking about?’ College was ridiculously hard for me. In that sense, that made the transition to my career easy.” 

Harley, a program manager at Joby Aviation, recalls completing linear algebra, systems, and distributed systems in one term as the most intense 10 weeks of her Dartmouth years. She says while some students thrive on that sort of workload, others suffer from the stress, affecting their wellness. 

“In addition, I had a job on campus, 20 hours a week, on top of my academic commitments,” says Harley, who was named a Stamps Scholar. “My social life suffered, for sure. There just weren’t enough hours in the day, and you have to prioritize.”

Following their roadmap, Townsend says he was able to maintain a manageable workload. In addition to being a student-athlete, he joined a fraternity and worked in Professor Lee Lynd’s biofuels lab. 

“You need to keep your eyes on the prize from day one,” says Townsend, now a hedge fund senior portfolio manager. “I probably didn’t experience nearly enough of the liberal arts program that Dartmouth has to offer because I made sure every class I took satisfied an elective or prerequisite requirement. That said, my non-engineering courses were extremely valuable.” 

While he never felt overwhelmed by the demands of his studies, Townsend says he supports the push for fifth-year BE financial aid. Undergraduates who don’t discover their passion for engineering until their sophomore year need a fifth year to complete the BE, and Thayer students who want to immerse themselves in the arts, humanities, and social sciences should have the opportunity to do just that, he says. 

Curtis Lim ’14 TH’14 says he is grateful for the generous financial aid award he received during his four years at Dartmouth. He decided during his first year that he would pursue the AB and BE within four years, in part due to the lack of fifth-year financial aid and also because he was eager to begin his career. Like Townsend, he says he immediately realized that careful planning was essential, particularly as many engineering courses past the 30-level are offered only once a year. His planning was diligent enough that he was also able to major in economics, but there were downsides. 

“I definitely was underexposed to the liberal arts side of Dartmouth. Besides a culture class, a philosophy course, and a public speaking course, I don't really recall taking anything outside of prerequisites for engineering or econ,” says Lim, vice president of a macro hedge fund. “A fifth year would have been an absolute godsend if that had been an option. However, I felt really blessed to graduate debt-free.”