My Name is Dante Santos

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Disclaimer: I’m writing this piece about my own experiences. This is not all transitions. This is about one transition – mine. My opinions are not intended to represent the opinions of any group of people or persons.

My name is Dante. I was born and raised female, but I will graduate college as the man I have always been. I think this is the simplest way to describe my transition. Practically everyone at Olin transforms in one way or another during their time here. Some emerge from their high-school shells. Some grow ridiculous facial hair. Others discover a passion for robotics. My transformation has been, and will continue to be, logistically and culturally more complicated than these examples. I have been on hormones for over six months now. At this point, I’m presenting (perceived as) male full-time. Still, whenever I hear people say “excuse me, sir” and “he was first” and “ask him” my heart jumps and I try not to grin like an idiot. Transitioning from female to male has been, and will continue to be, a long and arduous journey, but I chose Olin to be the place where I would transition, and I believe I chose correctly.

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A Candid Conversation with Pito Salas

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Editor’s note: This is the full-length version of the interview; the printed version was shortened to fit the space. Scroll down if you wish to read the condensed version.
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Pito Salas had only been at Olin for two and a half weeks when I gave this interview, so his office was blank and bare. The only adornments were a “Lean Startup” concept board on top of a shelf and the “E=mc¬2” he scrawled on the board for the sake of the interview pictures.

Pito is new to Olin, but he is almost as new to teaching; his experience is primarily hands-on knowledge gained by working in (and founding) computer science-based start-ups. However, through a long-term determined effort, he has also branched out into the world of undergraduate education- first at his alma mater Brandeis University, and now here. He is currently teaching The Entrepreneurial Initiative (FBE) and the Entrepreneurship (E!) Capstone.

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Foundations of World View

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Ideas shape your life and the world you live in, from how you spend your days and nights, to where you work, and what political or social causes you support. The ideas that you hold affect every part of your being, even if you are unaware of it. Because the ideas that you hold are so fundamental to who you are and how you see and interact with the world, it is critical to wrestle with these ideas. Your ideas have consequences; you need to know if those consequences will be good or bad. Indeed, at some point, you may find that you need to question and revise the very ideas that have shaped your identity. Eventually, you will need to grapple with your answers to three critical questions: How did we get here? What is wrong with the world? How does it get fixed?

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A Puzzle by Midnight Math: March

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Let’s examine the following procedure: Start with a finite string of digits and replace each substring consisting of a repeated single digit with the number of digits in that substring followed by the digit of that that is being repeated. Example: 333 would become 33, and 2 would become 12 and 222233333 would become 4253. Starting with 1, and recursively applying this procedure generates the sequence: 1, 11, 21, 1211,… and so on. What is the largest digit that will ever appear in this sequence?

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The Duchess and the Dominatrix: March

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DutchessDominatrixI’m smitten with my UOCD teammate. What should I do?
—Senseless Sophomore

Go for it! Team projects can stress relationships, which is why you’re asked to silver-bullet your current significant other during the team-selection process. But in this case there’s no risk of ruining an existing relationship, only the opportunity to begin a new one.
—Duchess of Deportment

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Keep the Presses Running!

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Have you ever been in the computer lab late at night near the end of the month? Come visit and you’ll see us. We’re huddled around the last three computers in the front right corner: a handful of students joking, arguing about horoscopes, and yelling bad article titles back and forth.

“How about ‘News From Around the World’?”
“Too long and boring.”
“‘Bet You Didn’t Know This Thing Happened’”
“Too vague.”
“[censored]”
“…No.”
“Popping the Olin Bubble?”
“Perfect.”

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The Key to Communication

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Many times I have wondered about the whole aspect of conversation and whether or not people make distinctions between different conversation types: discussion, conversation, debate, simple chat, and so on. They all have their specific meanings with specific goals and depth of engagement. But do people know the differences between talking “to” someone and talking “at” someone? These two letter words can have a massive impact on your whole perception of talking with others. And a lot of it begins with who is the central focus of the spoken words.

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Ye Moste Accurate Horoscopes

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Aries (March 21 – April 19): You’d better check yourself before you wreck yourself, friend. Maybe you aught to check out that log in your own eye before you criticize the speck in yo neighbor’s, buddy. Your excuses are so weak that their Young’s modulus is negative.

Taurus (April 20 – May 20): You’ll find yourself confronting lies at every turn, but now is not the time to call bullshit. Maintain a calm facade and you’ll soon return to smooth sailing.

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