After yesterday’s
fun-filled, but not admissions-based, Harvard tour; I had no real expectations
for Brown. However, I did expect the Brown community to be less snobby than the good
folks over at Hahvahd Yahd. The Brown II chaperone, Ms. Tiffany Neal, met up
with us at the hotel to kindly drive us to the campus. We grabbed breakfast at
The Blue Room, a small Brown dining establishment in the same building as the
information center, and headed to the tour, Odwalla smoothie and flaky
chocolate croissant in hand.
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| Jordan kickoffs our tour! |
Our particular tour was
led by a peppy, enthusiastic rising junior at Brown University named Jordan; a
sociology major with a pre-med track, involved in activities such as theater
and soccer. We set out to walk through Brown and learn about the school. The
Brown campus is a gorgeous one in the summer. The grass is green and the
greenery is amazingly lush. I felt like the Ivy League Connection had
dropped me in a vat of college viewbooks and brochures. The architecture
and sculptures were picturesque, and the brick buildings look like they had
been made with more care and design in mind than at the illustrious
Harvard. There’s a variety of fun activities and clubs to join, and the
dormitories bond together. As Jordan put it, there’s “a great familial
feeling.” One of the most interesting buildings was the new Creative Arts
Center. Made completely out of glass, the varying departments of art can
look up and down through the transparent walls for inspiration.
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| The main Brown green. |
After our
hour-long tour had concluded, we went inside for our information session. The admissions officer began describing the
defining feature of Brown: the open curriculum.
Unlike the majority of colleges who have specific classes defined for
specific majors, Brown offers the chance to decide what classes you take and
fit them in into the “concentration” you choose. I found it interesting that Brown uses the
same fancy-shmancy lingo as Harvard, yet because of their officers’ warm,
inviting personalities, I didn’t care. Take note, people in power who need to
use their large vocabularies and PR skills to succeed. Over 80% of seniors have studied abroad by
the time they graduate, and Brown has 160 different programs to choose
from. With the open curriculum, the
student can also create his or her own major based on the classes he chooses
and what he/she wants to focus on. This
was definitely appealing to me.
We got out about
a hour later and headed back to the car to try and find the Brown II crew for a
cohort collision (a term I just coined).
After an exhaustive search (that lasted twenty minutes), we found Julia
and Michelle, who helped us find our way to the dining hall. It was sadly funny
to pay in cash for lunch and watch an annoyed crowd stand in line behind us,
most likely because a bunch of people were holding up the line with their
money, when they could’ve just swiped. I
walked into a busy, crowded space, with multiple lines and people holding trays
of food jaunting in multiple directions.
I ended up getting grilled chicken breast, with chicken Caesar salad,
rice, and a banana (why not) to supplement.
I sat at the ILC table and got to catch up with the Brownies (not quite
sure if that term exists yet, but it does now), who had gone to Yale on their
college tour and were about to finish up Women and Leadership by the end of the
week. It was great to see some more
familiar faces (go Gauchos) and say “hey” to new ones as well.
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| Eric snapping shots for zee blog. |
Overall, I
thought Brown was a beautiful campus with an exuberant spirit. It feels like a
small school (a very homey feel) but remains a large university to root for in
terms of athletics and such. The school is diverse with a vast array of
opinions, and seems like a very open marketplace of ideas. The dorm food wasn’t too bad, except for the
dry rice, and I feel like I could both be academically challenged and
supported, while still managing to be able to participate in extracurriculars
and still have a social life. I will
definitely be considering Brown this fall! It’s safe to say that I definitely
love Brown people and their welcoming community.
After a group
photo (see below) and goodbyes, the Yalies and I headed to the mall - The three-story mall definitely would’ve kept
us occupied for a while – but we had just enough time for Damian, Eric, and
Liam to pick up some Dairy Queen. After a short search for Ben & Jerry’s
that ended in vain, it was time to leave Providence for the time being and
Amtrak our way into New Haven.
The walk into
Union Station and to our shuttle to the hotel was a study of interesting
contrasts. The station was bright and modern while maintaining that classic
train station feel. However, when we
walked outside, we were thrust back into an environment with people everywhere,
jostling my arm, accidently hitting my suitcase. We climbed aboard a free
shuttle. A series of homeless people
boarded the bus and started asking the other members of my cohort for
money. The homeless man’s fiancé was
pregnant and they needed to look for a house.
Another man climbed aboard and asked for a quarter, only a quarter. Eric mentioned he didn’t have one and the man
repeated over and over, “Don’t worry, it’s okay. Don’t worry…”
The mist dripped
through a cloudy, sunless afternoon, with water droplets falling down the
opaque windows. We climbed off the bus
and headed toward the hotel. I turned
around to see the bus: windows clouded, the people staring down, straight
ahead, up; anything but out the window.
We checked into
our hotel rooms (I decided to room with Damian this time) and set up our
things. Damian opened up the window to check out our view. At first, we only saw the dirty rooftops and
another ugly building built in the ‘70s.
But as we looked off in the distance, we saw the beautiful spires of
churches and of Yale. It was a moment
stinged with contrast – the beautiful and ugly stuck in our view.
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| Grilled Spanish octopus |
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| duck leg confit & crispy potato galette |
I Yelped out New
Haven on the train ride there, so after being presented with options ranging
from Ethiopian to Mexican, our cohort decided on Union League Café, a French
restaurant. The food wasn’t the only thing
that was high quality. Our waiter actually hailed from France, so Eric, Damian,
and Liam attempted their French throughout the evening. My French vocabulary
consists of “Ouí,” “Mercí beaucoup,” “Bonjour, mon amie,” and the names of
cities and food. It was interesting that we were treated slightly differently
because of our more casual attire and the fact that we were a) “kids” and b)
people that looked more “lower-class” than the others dining in the
restaurant. It wasn’t anything by our
waiter, but more the general attitude of the place in general. Don’t worry, I really enjoyed my experience
there, but that fact will come up again shortly.
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| Josh's main course. |
We started off
with poulpe grillé (Grilled Spanish octopus, chickpeas, baby arugula, & Romesco
sauce) and confit de canard (Boneless duck leg confit, crispy potato galette,
Granny Smith apple and walnuts, watercress salad), with onion puffs and
baguettes provided. The octopus reminded
me of scallops in terms of texture, and the flavor was definitely embedded
well. I wasn’t a fan of the confit as I
didn’t feel the duck and galette went well together. For my main course, I had
the filet de bouef cressoniè (Pan seared 8 oz tenderloin of beef, watercress soubise, fork
mashed potato macaire, whole grain mustard sauce). The beef was incredibly
tender and almost melted in this eater’s mouth. The watercress soaked in the
beef juices and were extremely soft, as were the macaire. We closed out with chocolate espresso mousse
for dessert. Truly a satisfactory meal,
although I’m not sure if it beat yesterday’s lobstah!
The
Yalies and I walked out, satisfied with our meal, only to return to the
underbelly of the New Haven “ghetto.” A
homeless man, standing in the dark, cried out “Help, help!” We kept on, not stopping until we had made it
back to our safe, comfortable hotel rooms. I don’t know how to solve the
enormous poverty problem that millions of Americans face everyday. I don’t know how to solve homelessness and
suffering. I do know that simply ignoring the problem won’t go away. Yesterday,
I dove a little bit into the world of race relations, and today saw me
experiencing the world of class relations.
These are complicated issues that we face. It’s important to remember when we think
about these things to treat people as people
and not demographics. The poor aren’t
necessarily poor because they earned it, and neither are the rich. The way classes treat each other sometimes
ravages what it means to be a human.
Good leaders stand strong and fix the problems of our society by
standing class-blind. As the acceptance officers at Brown said, everything in a
student’s application is taken with a grain of salt so they can try to
understand the student in a more contextual and conceptual manner. They want to
see, as they put it, “who you are and who you could be.” If we only took that
much time to understand others.
Follow us on our college tour throughout this week! Send me feedback by commenting below and emailing jandakocompany@yahoo.com. And for a more intimate look at my Yale experience, follow me on Instagram @joshthebosh to see a more visual Ivy League Connection.
