Dara Lehrer ’16

Hello! My name is Dara Lehrer and I am a first-year here at Oberlin College. Oberlin was literally the only school I applied to last year, so maybe that gives you a good impression of how obsessed I am with this place. Maybe you already go here and are OSCA knocking right along as I write how great Oberlin is, or maybe you are at home scouring the Oberlin blogs, trying to figure out whether this is the place where you’ll spend the next four (or five) years of your life.

My pre-Oberlin life was spent by and large in my hometown, Tucson. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you just how radically different Ohio is than Arizona. I love the desert heat, the heavy summer rains and the gorgeous, impossible-to-miss mountains that I used to attempt to photograph while driving. Even though I’ll always be a desert girl at heart, the changes of seasons here in Oberlin are so so beautiful. Who knew grass was supposed to be green? And that leaves fell off of trees at certain times of the year?

Academically, I am interested in studying movement and medicine. I want to combine the knowledge that can be gained through studying human biology both in class and on the dance floor to create a more holistic and self-aware approach to medicine and healing.

Besides studying the body in school, I also practice yoga (and partner yoga, which is a ton of fun) and aerial silks. If you don’t know what that is, reference my picture spanning across the top of this page for clues. In essence, I like to hang upside down from a long strip of fabric. It’s pretty great.

My favorite thing about Oberlin is OSCA, which stands for the Oberlin Student Cooperative Association. Basically, big groups of us communally cook our own food, clean our own kitchens, and make our own decisions on food policy. It is, in my humble opinion, what makes Oberlin the overwhelmingly unique school that it is, as well as makes its students the responsible, motivated citizens they are.

So that’s a little bit about me, keep up with my blog posts to find out the nitty gritty of what I do on a week-by-week basis. My life is an open book now, read on!