Roads Taken

Guest Joseph Marcheso was six or seven years old when he found out that being an opera conductor was something someone could do. From that moment, he knew he wanted to be one. So going to an Ivy League school was somewhat of an insurance policy in case he decided to let go of his dream. When his dream didn’t change, it became a bit of a liability as it disconnected him from the musical world for a...

Guest  Tiernan Sittenfeld  had glimpses in high school of not only the grandeur of America's landscapes but also the degradation that was happening within them when she saw clear cuts up close. She was drawn to understand how we can best conserve these lands and the communities linked to them and took advantage of the first opportunity to earn an Environmental Studies certificate in college and ta...

Guest  Cameron Turner  had come to college with a full-sized drafting table and a dream to become an architect. He had to build his own academic program, augmenting his studio art major with an engineering minor and internship experiences at a variety of architecture firms. Going through corporate recruiting, he got an opportunity to work at Microsoft and figured it would be an experience for a co...

Guest  Keshav Puttaswamy  was excited to be able to dabble in the full liberal arts curriculum of college and found an interest in computer science. When he had the opportunity to intern at Microsoft in a rather new role of product manager he took it despite not knowing what it would entail. He ended up learning a lot about not only computer science but also how the business worked and had fun doi...

Guest  Suzanne Leonard  joined the staff of The Dartmouth, but realized the pace of a daily paper didn’t give her time to spend with the stories or the words she was writing. A work-study job at the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine gave her a taste of a different pace that suited her better. A double English and psychology major, she found the perfect internship, working as an assistant at Psychology Tod...

The 25th-ish college reunion that many of the shows guests and host Leslie Jennings Rowley were able to attend this summer was a great chance to reconnect, and she felt as though that they were able to greet one another with a lot more authenticity this time around. It could have just been their slightly advanced age and the wisdom that comes with it. But enough people mentioned that having heard...

The original aim of this podcast series was to tell the stories of many classmates of the Dartmouth Class of 1996 before our 25th reunion. Due to the postponement, we've had a chance to interview even more people than we thought we could. The Reunion is coming up next week and we can't wait to make even deeper connections in person in a live event and just through normal conversation. The show wil...

Guest  Oliver Will  was always good at math and when he got to college he figured he would parlay that into a science or engineering degree. While taking the mathematics prerequisites for a number of majors, he realized he liked the theoretical elegance of the math itself. And yet, he was interested in real-world applications, too. A course in bioethics introduced him to the idea of the computatio...

Guest  Brendan Doherty  had entered college thinking he was a math and science person, was then drawn to government but his choice of major—geography—ultimately felt made for him when the government courses were all full. His post-college decision points, however, seemed to always weigh the balance between two weighty options. First he needed to decide whether he would stick with the favored idea...

Recently , ROADS TAKEN sat down to talk with Lara Fowler about her tendency to become and remain curious about things, leading her to a wide variety of interests and ultimately into a career in water resource management. When the coronavirus pandemic hit, she had to wind down a year living in Sweden with her family and navigate her husband’s long covid symptoms on two continents. Join Leslie Jenni...

Guest  Lara Fowler  had been a cross-country ski racer and studied Japanese in high school in Portland, Oregon. She took those two pursuits to college and pursued them to their highest. With all of the language requirements and a study abroad program that she wanted to undertake, she had nearly completed a major in Asian Studies. But she also had a long-standing interest in water. So in fulfilling...

Guest  John Strayer  had figured his post-graduation life would find him either the author of the Great American Novel or dead. While his ambition was large, so was his problem with alcohol. His alcoholism made him limp along senior year. Luckily, as he says, he hit rock bottom soon thereafter and has been sober 25 years. While the Midwest was a good landing pad while he got his life back on track...

Last week, to mark both memorial day and our 96th full-length episode of Roads Taken, we presented the first in this two-part series in which we remember those classmates in Dartmouth’s Class of 1996 who have died.  Although their roads were too short, their stories stay with us. In this second of two episodes, we remember nine of the nineteen classmates who have died: Katherine Domingo Grier Laug...

On this memorial day, when the country mourns the loss of the U.S. military personnel who have died while serving in the United States armed forces, we join in the tradition of giving solemn thanks and remembrance. To mark our 96th full-length episode of Roads Taken, we are presenting this special Memorial Day episode in which we remember those classmates in Dartmouth’s Class of 1996 who have died...

Guest  Michael Roberts  had already taken on the identity of musician—specifically singer—while in high school. He was encouraged by his parents to attend college where he could be pursue what he loved while being exposed to a wide range of subjects and experiences through a liberal arts curriculum. It would also be convenient if he attended Dartmouth, the same place his three siblings had already...

Guest  Kira Lawrence  felt, in high school, that she was considered odd by the academic kids because she was a “jock” and wasn’t quite a mainstream athlete because she was a “brain.” In college she felt accepted for both of those identities in a place that had lots of people who were both. But, in realizing she was gay, she gained a whole new perspective on what it meant to feel “othered.” While i...

Guest  Sharon Walker  left her home in Trinidad for college in New Hampshire, thinking it was somewhere close to New York City. She quickly realized the cosmopolitan life she’d anticipated wasn’t what she would be living. So that first year was rather miserable. It was only after deciding that summer that she’d fling herself into activities that she started feeling part of the community and took a...

Guest  Dave Leone  realized during college that his interest in chemistry might not be long lived. Instead, he found earth sciences. Upon graduation, he options were graduate school, petroleum geology, or environmental geology. He found a small environmental firm that let him do a little of everything and then moved on to a larger firm where he has stayed for nearly a quarter century, assessing co...

Guest  Stephanie Argamaso  knew exactly who she was when she entered college: a quiet perfectionist—to the point of having to write a script for her pizza order to place next to the phone. She majored in environmental science and minored in religion but didn’t see herself using those fields after graduation. In order not to have to go home to New York, she stuck around Hanover for a couple extra y...

Guest  Rebecca Benn was excited to meet new people at college since she had been with the same small handful of schoolmates in her Mississippi Catholic school for her entire upbringing. Despite the welcome diversity of experiences of that she saw in her college friends, however, she also recognized similarities in values and inquisitiveness. She immersed herself in making deep friendships and in s...

Guest  Nakiah Cherry Chinchilla shared part one of her Roads Taken story, in which she talked about her early career in fashion and television and how she was always listening to her heart and feeling as though she were called to do more. At the same time, her home life became very confusing when her husband began exhibiting odd behaviors. That chapter ended as her husband Mike—who had been hospit...

Guest  Nakiah Cherry Chinchilla felt as though she was born a generation too late, as she has always felt a call to advocate for societal change and for help people. But she also has listened to the call to go out on the town and live it up. Upon leaving college, she entered into the fashion industry in New York, taking on public relations and operations roles with big brands such as DKNY and fash...

Guest  Aliza Pressman went to college wanting to develop a side of herself beyond her natural artistic side. Although she did have a range of experiences while there, she ended up combining her interests in art history, English literature, and drama and exploring the human condition throughout it all. Not wanting the experience to end with graduation, she and some friends started a theater company...

Even when guest  Andrew Friedman  didn't have much experience with something, but thought it would be a fun challenge to try, he would go after it. For example, having never played football in his life, he walked onto the college team. Having taken only a couple computer science classes, he started building websites for area business while still in college. In hindsight, trying to get a job in a g...

Guest  Sarah Lugaric  was drawn to the study of religion and the myths and narratives that all cultures have to help us understand ourselves and our place in the world. Leaving college without the clearest sense of who she was, but with a job on Wall Street, she learned the culture of business and found that she was still interested in what that said about being human. She didn’t love banking, tho...