Interview with Aya Hajjeh – Dartmouth College

Interviewer: Hi Aya, you and I got connected through Dartmouth and my work at Tuck, and you’re just one of the most involved students I’ve ever met in undergrad. You’re at Dartmouth and wrapping up this semester, right?

Aya: Yeah, it goes by so fast.

Interviewer: Yeah, I know. My goal is really to share your story and dive into things like Dartmouth’s curriculum, what it’s like to live in Hanover, and what you’re looking at moving towards the future, so just to start there,

my first question is always just how you chose Dartmouth and how you ended up at the school.

Aya: Yeah, I went to a boarding school in Syria, and it was a pretty small school, it was like 100 something students like in the entirety of the high school. So I wanted a small college; I wouldn’t say Dartmouth is super small, but it’s still a stark difference from my small high school. I didn’t want to be overwhelmed by the amount of people in one university. The other part is that I really loved my high school because I knew everyone at the school and you literally – I could have had a conversation with every single person. I would be walking in the hallway and just see somebody and just be able to start talking with them. I had a pretty close connection with all of my professors which was really amazing in so many ways. You get to know your professors academically, personally, and they write you great recommendation letters. So while I was experiencing those close connections, at the same time, it’s what my future goals were for what my college experience would be like. Dartmouth resembles my high school in so many ways but obviously it’s on a university level and so that was definitely a huge part of it. Dartmouth has those classes where there are only 9 students and that’s pretty amazing and you get to meet and work with that professor for four or five hours a week for an entire term which is really awesome. I think that definitely was a main factor for why I chose Dartmouth and then on top of that there was just the location. I lived in an urban area and I’m someone who really I wanted to try something new. I love trying new experiences because it never hurts to learn new things and be exposed to new things. At the end of the day, whether you prefer urban or rural, I focused on what Dartmouth had to offer and didn’t care too much what Hanover would be like because you’re only in undergrad for four years. I have been able to do things really unique to Dartmouth and its location, whether it’s hiking or going swimming in the river, or going to the old lodges and cabins up in the mountains. Like one time I went on a hike in the end of fall and it was starting to get snowy so the path was iced over. We had to wear those shoe spikes to be able to walk up the trail to the lodge. It was something I’ve never done in my life. That’s one of the stories I’ll be telling people when I graduate from here. Some of the other leading influences were the logistical stuff. I knew that I needed financial aid to go to college and Dartmouth is known to be extremely generous when it comes to financial aid so that was a big third factor for me.

Interviewer: Yeah, great run-through. You covered a lot of the main things students are looking at when they’re considering school, so you touched on location, size, what the community is known for, what it has to offer, and then financial aid.

Really quick question: What was the weather like where you’re from in Syria?

Aya: Yeah, very humid, very hot.

Interviewer: Okay, so completely different. Had you seen snow before you got to Dartmouth?

Aya: I did but only a couple of inches.

Interviewer: It’s funny, there are so many students that even if they’re just from somewhere else in the US, like Texas or somewhere down south, they’ve never seen snow or they’ve only seen frozen rain or something. So like you were saying, you had preferences when considering which school you were going to attend, you wanted to try something new and that was a combination of the rural setting of Hanover and then also the small community that you were seeking out.

Were there certain advantages you’ve seen from being involved in a community like that in this location?

Aya: Yeah, I think a big advantage of that is that you’re almost guaranteed to get an answer from a Dartmouth alum if you reach out, which is really awesome. In my opininon, that is less the case if you go to a big university that has thousands of people in it. Dartmouth alums especially really care about their school and I’ve heard stories where someone was walking in some random state out west and they saw someone wearing a Dartmouth hoodie and so they stopped them and had a whole conversation about going to Dartmouth and I am not sure that would happen as often if you come from a big university. That’s a huge part of what I love about Dartmouth. People here really care. If you reach out, people want to help. So whoever you reach out to asking for advice about an internship or full-time job or to learn about their experiences, people are pretty much willing to share all they can offer to you.

Interviewer: Yeah, and you have to be willing to explore that on your own and it’s another reason I reached out to you, because again I’m excited to have you on here because we’ve met in so many ways and we’ve worked together through Dartmouth, but I also know that you’ve taken advantage of exactly what you just said, which is people being willing to answer your email or meet for coffee.

So let’s shift more into what you do as a student or what you’ve done up to senior year. Let’s get into what your major is and what you’ve been seeking out for different opportunities.

Aya: Yeah so I I came here to Dartmouth, my high school was pretty much STEM focused, so I’ve Always known I’m interested in the STEMs. I came here as a computer science major and took my first CS class after taking CS classes in my high school. But I took my CS1 here in my first term and I knew I’ve always loved programming, but I came here and was told there is a computer science major so that’s what I chose very early. I had a moment like, ‘Wait, I actually love computer science, why would I bother doing engineering if I can just do computer science?’ And it was like an instant decision after I took CS1. But I have so many different interests. I thought I wanted to be a studio art double major, but took a studio art class and decided that wasn’t for me. Then I thought I’d maybe do a digital arts minor, and took a couple of those classes and decided I loved it and enjoyed it but I didn’t want to do a full minor. I also took a few other classes and changed my mind even more so the one consistent concept that I kept was computer science but I’ve definitely changed the other interests so many times. And I think a lot of people do take advantage of that; I have someone in my class right now who is doing music modified with computer science which is something I’ve never heard before. So there is definitely a lot of flexibility depending on what you want and you have plenty of time to decide what you actually want to do in your life.

Interviewer: Yeah, I think it’s a great. I think you just talked about three different minors that you considered or it might have even been four of them in in those examples, and I think that’s one thing that I just keep learning over and over again is students seem to want all the experiences in their first year and to figure out which job they want and just have things kind of set in a way that you can rely on. You said CS was this consistent thing you could always go back to, that’s what you focused on for your major and in four years you had enough time to consider multiple minors while you’re also doing all these other things outside the classroom. So just to emphasize that you have the time to take a class for a full semester sometimes those semesters feel really long but you can still try a class or a couple classes and then you can switch it up again which I think is so important and it’s a great thing to emphasize.

So you’re dealing with all this academic commitment and you figured out a good way to kind of structure that and get to senior year successfully, what else did you add outside of that for extracurriculars or different things you take advantage of at Dartmouth?

Aya: Yeah I think definitely the Dartmouth Outdoors Club because they have this website called Trailhead, and as someone who doesn’t have a car, I always need someone to organize a trip with rides available. So Trailhead, they always post trips and adventures to join and whatnot. And they do really amazing stuff, like some of them are low-key, like here in the area, others you go somewhere in the state or like in Vermont, and others sometimes there are trips where you go to Maine. I remember there was a special type of birds to go see during winter where they literally went all the way to Maine and they had to get on a boat. I forgot what that bird’s name was, but you get on a boat, you’re going there, you see the bird, and then you come back. So, that’s like pretty wild, but really, I’ve taken advantage, like again, as someone who came here looking for outdoor experiences specific to Hanover I was never immersed in before, the trips are very beginner friendly so you can definitely take advantage of that. Like ice skating, canoeing, kayaking, I have also never done in my life before coming here and the ways I took advantage of that was through the Dartmouth Outdoor Club because again they always try to post trips and educational sessions to teach people. Also I know the First-Gen Office, they always host things because Jay Davis, the director, is obsessed with skiing and he’s so good at it so every few weeks he posts a trip and is like, ‘If any of you want to learn how to ski or ice skate, people can sign up with me.’

Interviewer: Oh that’s awesome. Yeah I have the advantage of working with him, it’s been so much fun for us to get to know his team. So yeah shout out to the First-Gen Office at Dartmouth, a close partner of my team and they’re always doing events on campus. I didn’t even know they were doing that stuff off campus but just from what I’ve learned working here, so many people go skiing or hiking and do things together outside of work too from the admin perspective. So you’ve taken advantage of some outdoor opportunities,

What’s it like living in Hanover? I guess a different way to ask it, what was one surprising thing when you got to Dartmouth that you didn’t expect culturally?

Aya: That’s a good question. I think like it really depends like what culture you come from. So when you come here, I think it’s pretty common, like usually, for me it’s like if you know someone and you just pass by them without really stopping for a conversation, it’s considered rude where I am from. But at Dartmouth, or maybe typical to parts of the US, it’s pretty common here to say hi in passing, which is not something I was expecting. Another part of it when it comes to Dartmouth is that it really is a melting pot of so many people who come from every corner of the world, like literally almost every other country and people come here with their cultures and we all have different ways to express how we care about someone else or how we value friendships and you just have to be curious and learn how other people approach that.

Interviewer: Yeah that’s super interesting I wasn’t expecting such a specific example and I’m glad I asked the question because that’s so normal, like even in high school for me growing up in Vermont, I guess my assumption was that everyone’s busy and it’s like oh great to see you but we’ll catch up later, that kind of thing, but that’s such a great cultural example of something that caught you by surprise initially.But then if you do have time randomly, I guess you probably do also stop and talk to people when you can, so no, I actually really like that you brought that up. To round out our community based questions, I’ll point out that so many schools do a good job of prioritizing international partnerships and recruiting students from all over the place, but I think you just give us a good sense of that reputation Dartmouth has where it’s rural, it’s set just north of Boston but you kind of have access to a lot of different things which I think is really valuable.

As we switch to more of a professional focus, what was the first year or summer you had an internship in undergrad?

Aya: Yeah, so I went to the computer science route right, but it was clear that I didn’t fully know what you can do with that kind of degree. I think that is something I wish I came to Dartmouth knowing more about, I wish I had been a bit more long-term focused because I came here and would calculate things I am doing now or in the next year or in the summer, but you really have to start thinking about what you want to do after your graduate so you make sure you’re not in your senior year not knowing what you actually want to do. So my first summer I got an internship through the Dickey Center and it was with an organization that works with girls with a focus on entrepreneurship, The founder of that organization was a Dartmouth alum and it was a remote internship and it was more of a tech consulting internship. I liked tech and I liked CS at the time but I also kept asking myself what else I could look at. Let’s see what else, oh wait, no, the first summer I worked at an organiztio called Seeds of Peace, which was a summer camp for high schoolers and it was in Maine. The following summer was the tech consulting internship and then my third summer was the Paganucci Fellowship through Tuck. Paganucci was like two months, and then at the end of the summer, I also did some data engineering internships with hands-on coding because again I liked the tech stuff because there are so many options from research, to consulting, to coding. I really liked my data engineering internship because it was very closely working with data and more hands-on coding and that’s when I knew what I wanted to do for a job. But it took awhile to figure out and I really wish I was more future focused when I got to Dartmouth my freshman year. I don’t want to make people too stressed about it but at least try to have a goal in mind even if it is very vague. I think it was the end of my sophomore year and I had a conversation with Janice Williams from the First-Gen Office. I feel like if I had met with Janice my first year, I would have been thinking about things professionally. And I think that was a big thing about me just like I wasn’t really future-oriented as much as I needed to. And Janice does a great job at making time for freshman and sophomores because you come here and you think four years is like too much – you do have plenty of time, but like at the same time you have to be thinking of what you want to do after graduating. So yeah, junior summer. Finally, I decided I wanted a software engineering job, but it took me three years to decide that.

Interviewer: Yeah, yeah. Well, it’s such a delicate balance, like we keep saying it’s four years and in some ways it drags on and then other ways it ends in two seconds. And shout out to Janice for sure; she works very closely with me to facilitate outreach to students, and she’s an example of one of the other questions I always ask, about which people that are supportive and helpful to students on campus, so having those admins that really care about students and touching on what you were saying about a smaller school.

How did you find the internships you were talking about? Were they through campus or was it just your own search? How did that work?

Aya: Yeah, I know you know you can find a lot of stuff through an online search, but those are quite competitive especially again like if you’re depending on a certain industry. CS for example, is super saturated, and the tech market is pretty challenging for finding opportunities, so I’d say to follow leads like follow-ups from recruiters unless there are people working in certain companies who you know can help. The Dickey Center was definitely a great resource. Like I said, I got two opportunities through them. I also read about a lot of openings in the newsletter and one of the older people in the First-Gen Office also did one of the internships the year before me and I found time to sit down and ask him about the experience. Another thing is the Social Entrepreneurship program on campus and one time we had a guest speaker who was the CEO and founder of a social enterprise and he literally said on zoom that if anyone was interested in coding to reach out to him because they were looking for interns. So I took his work and direct messaged him saying thank you for the session and offered to send my resume. He then connected me with the data team and that’s how I got interested.

Interviewer: That’s great, so a combination of meeting people and actually taking them up when they offer and saying, ‘I’m interested,’ which again is not easy by any means for a lot of students. It’s hard to figure out what to say and when to say it so again, people like Janice or taking someone for their offer to reach out are both ways of going about finding new opportunities. And then also you keep mentioning the centers and resources on campus and it’s funny I just had a conversation with a student at UMiami and one of his points was all you need to do is read the newsletters that are sent to your school email, and if you actually read them, you’ll learn about things and events just to get connected. So I think that’s amazing, and again, you’ve done kind of done all three, and it’s all exploration.

So, last question around the professional thing, is there a specific skill across CS or the tech focus or anything you’ve done that you think is most beneficial for you as you transition to graduation?

Aya: Okay, two skills. One is time management. I’ve always known that time management is a big thing right? But you come to college and it’s a lot to handle. You have to be really practiced at it, you have to be good at it. So, time management, big thing not only when it comes to your academics, but like you really have to balance social life, personal life, and your workload and professional life. There are so many things that happen all at once and you have to be able to manage them all. The other thing is learning how to learn. I think that’s just the biggest thing in college. It’s true for CS, but it’s also true for like so many other things in other fields.I’ll talk about CS specifically. Like a team decides you need to build an app, you have to learn how to build it no matter how much experience you have. When you go to the outside world and you’re in an industry, you’ll most likely be asked to build stuff that you’ve never done before while using languages you’ve never used before. So I think if you can learn how to learn in college, you’ll be successful in your area of focus. Interviewer: That’s such a quotable answer. Learning how to learn, you’re explaining hgow you’ll be faced with uncertainty and being adaptable and open to taking on those challenges is really important. It goes hand in hand with what you’re saying, and you’ve overcome some of those uncertain moments yourself with the examples you’ve talked about and then obviously as you move into post-grad and maybe grad school, all the other things you’ll pursue, it’s the same thing. It’s just going to be a test to figure projects out. I really like that phrasing. Learn how to learn. My last question, and my typical final question, is…

…what is your advice for making the most of undergrad?

Aya: Yeah, I have two tips. Be open and curious because you come to college and you’re meeting those people who come from very different cultures and\ have very different lived experiences so be open to those connections because it benefits you in the short term and long term to learn from them. It’s amazing because I have friends from all over the world and I know if I ever go to any of those countries, I have people who will host me. The other tip is be willing to ask for help. When I came her my first year I was not someone who was comfortable asking for help, and you’ll be surprised how many people are willing to help you so take advantage of that. People love helping other people.

Interviewer: So maybe like the other way you said it, ‘take a minute and stop on the sidewalk to say hi and have a conversation.’

Aya: Yeah, that’s perfect.