EVERYTHING'S RIGHT

Front Gate Brown

WOW. That was truly one of the most amazing universities I've ever been to. Brown University is a really beautiful university. There's a lot of greens (big grass fields). People are sitting outside, reading, studying. The leaves are beautiful and everybody looks really serious. We came there early and we walked around the quad and we went to the student union. They had a coffee bar there. (they have those everywhere with muffins and all sorts of stuff) We had a cup of coffee there and pool tables and a student market and a lot of silent rooms. And everyone has a Macbook Pro. At noon a student from Brown came to take me to a class of hers together with another junior Christina who is Chinese going to boarding school in the US. The student Evelyn is a freshman at Brown and she really liked Brown. We went to a lecture with about 50 students called Introduction to Cognitive Neuroscience and it was really interesting. When people have strokes certain parts of the brain are damaged. Some people have the input or intake (i forget) damaged and then they just speak a lot, but they're just meaningless sentences. They're not grammatical errors or spelling errors, but if you ask them a question they wont answer the question. They will start saying things that are totally meaningless. And other people have the output area damaged and they can't get things out of their mouth. You can think of it as if I'm having a conversation with you and for every word you pay a dollar. So if you're trying to say: I'm going to go to the store to buy some chocolate. You would probably say: Store. Buy. Chocolate.

That's what happens to those patients who have the output all wrong. They also make grammatical mistakes. The funny thing is they know that they're making these mistakes! I was surprised I could understand a lot of it! That was really cool. :)

Next we had lunch in the cafeteria and this cafeteria food was much better. It was very good and we had fun talking to the Brown student. She really loved Brown and she was focused mostly on science. I forgot which major. The only problem with Brown was that you had to pick a major, but they didn't have a core curriculum which is really nice. A core curriculum is the plan for students where everybody has to take a couple courses like math or science or english. You could fill your requirements for your major in your own way. The next thing was that they didn't have a lot of interdisciplinary courses or didn't mention it. Evelyn (hope I spelled it right) was really nice. She was from LA and she said that a lot of students were international and that about half of her floor was international and that the campus was really accepting of international students and the orientation for internationals was really good. The international orientation is pretty good everywhere, but the students felt really open and nice. It's a really good idea when you go to a college to go shadow a student.

Quad Brown

We had a information session after that and it was informative and good. They were enthusiastic and nice and they have a lot of experience with international students and their applications. Next we went on a campus tour, which is really beautiful. The students leading it were a little fake I thought. They were nice, but not the most genuine students I ever met. I asked about ultimate frisbee after the tour and they said the teams would be practicing at a field at five. We went there after we bought a 'Brown ultimate frisbee' and s sweat shirt from Brown. Ultimate is really popular here so that is really fun! I would like to go to a school with a good team. At this point it is probably a far shot to go for Brown. It is kind of a dream school for me. At this point Tufts and Brown tie for my favorite school on this trip. The junior Christina from China was a little bit envious, because I had a lot more chance of getting in than her. (she said) Because I'm the only person from my school who would be applying and that there already are a lot of Asians who apply. Admissions officers read by regions. They compare students from the same school to see who is the best. At her school about thirty students would be applying and universities want a diverse campus. I hope they see I would bring that, but I'll see what I think after this week. This is only the fourth American University I've ever seen. Haha. Fun fact: Emma Watson from Harry Potter goes to Brown. ;)

Brown University

I'll keep you posted. All of these pics have not been taken by me. It’s a lot of work to load them all online.
EVERYTHING'S RIGHT - MATT WERTZ