General Information:
Informant: Evan Fu
Place: Hanover, NH
Date: October 22, 2021
Genre/Form of folklore: Customary/Ritual
Title: “First-Year Trips”

Informant Data: Evan Fu is a 21-year-old Dartmouth student who is part of the class of 2022. He is from Palo Alto, California, and he lives on campus at Dartmouth in Hanover, New Hampshire for most of the year. He is a computer science major and an active member in Dartmouth’s investing program.

Contextual Data: In the weeks prior to freshmen orientation, the Dartmouth Outing Club organizes the first-year trips, which take incoming freshmen on a wide range of outings such as mountain biking, fishing, hiking, etc. The groups consist of six to eight freshman and two upperclassmen. During the trips, the freshmen do not have access to their phones or showers and are expected to have all their belongings in one portable bag.

Social Data: The first-year trips can be an intimidating experience for freshmen since it requires them to spend a few days in the outdoors with people they didn’t know before. This experience allows for freshmen to create relationships prior to orientation week and learn about the outdoor activities available to them around campus.

Item: Every fall, freshmen go on a trip led by the Dartmouth Outing Club to experience the outdoors around Dartmouth’s campus.

Transcript: 
Collector: “How did DOC trips make you feel as a freshman coming into a new environment?”

Informant: “The first-year trips were definitely an interesting experience that made me feel like everything about Dartmouth revolved around the outdoors, and it felt like the Dartmouth Outing Club was attempting to force this focus on outdoors. As someone who isn’t very interested in the outdoors, I felt disillusioned which quickly changed when I came back to campus. Although I did meet a lot of people, the trip really felt like a summer camp and shouldn’t be a deciding factor for coming to Dartmouth”

Collector Comment: I was never able to go on my trip since they are held during fall camp for football, but I have heard a wide range of reviews and experiences.  

Collected by:

Carson Reich 21

Houston, TX

Hanover, NH

Dartmouth College

RUSS 013

Fall 2021