Continuing my saga of college visits, this weekend I found myself on the campus of Brown University. Beyond that, I find myself lacking for words. The thing is, and it pains me to say this, I didn't really like it. Some of that may have something to do with the fact that I had the weirdest campus tour ever (more on that later), but I generally didn't get good vibes from the campus. And it feels awful to say that because I really wanted to like the campus. Brown has a really good Religious Studies program, and that is something that I am definitely interested in studying (my plan is a double major in RS and IR, and then go into international law if that makes any sense) so I was really hoping to like it. In any event, the campus itself was a little odd. The students seemed all too focused; people didn't say "Hi!" to each other the way I've seen on other campuses. It really gave the campus a cold, forbidding feel. The architecture itself was odd too. Most campus have one or two requisite modern monstrosities, but, generally speaking, they have a kind of look to which even new buildings conform in the general sense. This is not so at Brown. I wish I had pictures because all this would make so much more sense with them, but Brown's campus does not have a contiguous look and it lends a disconcerting sense of being lost to waking through the campus. It's hard to tell where the campus begins and ends because it looks like a random collection of buildings. I suppose it fits in with Providence the city, but it doesn't feel unified.
The campus tour matched this disconcerting sense of being lost too. Our tour guide almost didn't seem to go to Brown. Most tour guides will intersperse the fact based portion of their tour with personal anecdotes to make the tour seem interesting and to lend a sense of what it's actually like to attend their university. Our guide did none of that. Sure he threw in some interesting stories about the history of Brown, but I didn't here him tell one story about his personal experience attending his university. He seemed apathetic and like he too was visiting the campus. Additionally, he managed to go through the entire tour without mentioning athletics or student social life more than to acknowledge their mere existence. Now I am by no means an athlete (in spring and fall I dance and in winter I am the captain of the Brunswick Girls Fencing team of which I am the only member), but I still like hearing about the existence of that kind of stuff. I'm not going to join a team, but I plan on attending games to support my school. And of course, there must have been other people on that tour who would be interested in playing sports. Likewise, based on that tour, I have no idea what the social life of the average student is like. I'm not talking about parties (although that would be good to know about), just basic social interactions. I know I need a college where there is an active social scene on campus, i.e. the student body doesn't disperse into the city to entertain itself, otherwise I won't make friends. And I'd like to make friends. All of this is really tied into the fact that I don't think our tour guide used a single "I statement" in the entire tour, but I think the thing about the athletics and the social scene is especially weird.
All in all, I can't recommend Brown for myself. Even setting aside the weird tour, it was objectively a little strange and just not for me. But I have heard wonderful things about Brown from other people, so you really should go check it out for yourself.
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