Hollering In Hanover

Published: Oct 3, 2007

Here I was at an exciting new school, meeting exciting new people, with an exciting new pile of homework sitting on my desk.

Yet one day last week, I power-walked for you, dear reader, a good 25 minutes to my dorm and back to get my laptop to write this (exciting new) article.

Now, what could possibly prompt such a hike to my ridiculously far-away freshman dorm (which is so removed from the rest of campus, incidentally, that it is commonly known as the Vermont Foreign Study Program)?

Several hundred frighteningly bright students were having a shouting match on the front lawn.

With the Democratic presidential debate at Dartmouth, the candidates' supporters turned out en masse. Which meant that the country's best and brightest were clumped together behind giant signs and yelping their brilliant little heads off.

"Hill-a-ry! Hill-a-ry!"

"Fire it up!" "Ready to go!" "Ready to go!" "Fire it up!" (This call resounded, inexplicably, from all sides. What does it even mean?)

And "Obama oh-eight! Be a part of something great!" haunted my dreams for the next few nights - and will probably irk me enough to vote against good ol' Barack simply out of spite.

When I approached members of the horde and asked what good they were doing yelling themselves hoarse, no one could give me a satisfactory reply. "We're showing our support" was the most popular answer… and the least helpful. It isn't as though the illustrious Hillary is suffering from self-confidence issues and needs the show of devotion as a psychological cushion. "It's for the cameras" also makes little sense. The United States, I'm sure, is already painfully aware that Chris Dodd is running for president, what with all the other ear-splitting mobs plaguing the rest of the country.

In the end, the subjects of my interrogations turned back to the crowd, where they embarked on another round of (I'm forced to conclude) pointless shrieking.

Couldn't these students have found something more productive to do? One group started a polling Web site called Open-Vote for Dartmouth students, which could actually provide a valuable tool for sociologists and the public at large. A few other individuals are taking the opportunity to raise awareness about heart disease. Dartmouth students are some of the most creative, energetic, and gosh-darn interesting people I have ever met. What with all the brainpower at this school, one would hope to find more productive intellectual action than animalistic hollering.

In other news, my roommate has a rugby game this Sunday. I hope these kiddoes take their little pep rally to the field, where it can actually do some good.

Nicole Yunger Halpern is a freshman at Dartmouth College.