Brown University Top Questions

At least in the geology department, professors are great about getting to know you individually. The department feels like a large family, and I feel like I really know most of my professors and concentrators. This may be harder in some of the larger departments, but overall there is an active and involved faculty. Further, some of my best conversations have been carried out outside of classes, as people debate religion, gender norms and other things.

the open curriculum is probably one of the biggest attractions for students to come to brown (or for that matter, not to attend). personally, the open curriculum has been a positive for me. i am able to double major while still taking classes i'm interested in, such as the history of sports in america.

Some classes are huge and some are small. It depends on the class. If it is an intro class, its most likely to be big. If it is a higher up class or a class most people don't take, it will be smaller. It just depends on what you're interested in. It is competitive because one wants to do the best he/she can, but Brown does not have a competitive atmosphere. People are willing to form study groups and help each other out. It's really reassuring. I LOVE the open curriculum!

Some professors definitly know my face but i am not convienced that they know my name. My favorite class is Italian. Students study a lot however they also have a lot of fun there are many clubs around. There s a lot of intellectual conversation ooutside of class but nothing to make you feel left out or ignorant you will always find something to say and your comments are appreciated. You will find competitive students almost everywhere but here, it is not dominant. Nobody wants to do bad. But there is not tension with respect to wanteing to have higher grades than X in a class. The academic requirements are the best because there are none! you shape your education. How I felt about Brown during my first semester is in sense I was finally free. Throught high school somebody was always telling you what to take and make you take it! But here, you take what you will actually enjoy.

The academic structure here is good in that it allows you a huge amount of flexibility. It is one of the chief benefits in going to Brown. Students should be cautioned, however, that teaching quality varies from field to field. Brown attracts the best researchers in many sciences, but they are precisely that, researchers. Their teaching is incidental and sometimes forced. While the humanities tend to be very good, often the sciences are taught by supercilious professors whose courses become difficult for students whose learning styles are incongruous with whatever method the professor uses. In essence, it's hit or miss whether you'll have to seek outside help or the professor during office hours and essentially do the course outside of the lectures, or if the lectures will actually work for you.

Brown is hardly competitive. Everyone is pretty driven and laid back at the same time. Brown is one big oxymoron (although the last example is not an oxymoron, but whatever). Every professor is different. There are a HANDFUL of classes that are considered good at Brown. They are basically City Politics and Mande Dance. Done. Those are the only classes that people love.

Professors - the best Favorite Class - COGS0420 - Human Cognition Least Favorite Class - ECON0110 - Principles of Economics Students competitiveness - Depends on how you look at it. There are those we care, and those who don't care. Pre-med students are usually quite intense about getting good grades. Most students here, however, at least expect to get straight A's in the classes they take for a grade ( option for SnC, Satisfactory/No Credit for any class). Most Unique Class - an education class I took last semester. Inter-disciplinary, pretty interesting: EDUC0410B Major: Political Science Time with professors outside of class: lol. Why? You can always do it. But why? Professors have office hours and are usually available if you really need them. Academic Requirements: Strict - expect only the best at this school. Education at Brown - perhaps the best thing that will happy to you.

you can take small classes with sometimes 10 people in them, or big lecture courses with 500 students in them. The professors are great. Two of my professors have had me and other students over to their house to socialize. Studetns participate in class, and have intellectual conversations outside of class. students are not competitive! No core requirements. Classes are geared toward learning for its own sake, rather than getting a job. Great liberal arts education available. students have to be proactive in chosing their classes.

Academics at Brown are challenging if you want them to be. It's fairly easy to float by if that's what you're into, but if you want to do a good job and you're invested in your classes you can learn a lot, and meet with people who are just as invested as you. Most professors are available during office hours, and I know a lot of people who have taken seminars with 5 or 6 people in them. (Of course, those are the random obscure topics, but still cool.) I've had mixed experiences with TA's. Some were amazing, helpful, and friendly, while others could barely speak English and were so shy they didn't want to look me in the face. One of the cool things about classes, though, is because of the New Curriculum (pass/fail options for any class you want and no core requirements) you get all sorts of people in your classes (I mean, most humanities majors don't take Engineering courses, but there's still a lot of crossover) While this can be annoying when you have spent 4 years studying topics and some science person keeps speaking up in class saying the most idiotic things, really most of the time it's a great additional perspective, and keeps individual majors from group-think.

If you want to get to know professors, take small classes and go to office hours. Otherwise, most professors don't really bother to get to know you (in my experience). No matter how smart you think you are, there are people out there who are smarter, so don't count on having the best grade in the class to gain recognition. (Plus, you don't need it - just make a personal connection, participate, and show you care about the material). For the most part, students are silently competitive about grades. That is, everyone cares (very much) about how well they do, but that doesn't mean they are going to ask you how you did, or what your GPA is, etc... My favorite class at Brown has been Animal Behavior Laboratory. Not only was this a small course (10 kids) so I became close with the professor, but it is a seminar that meets once a week at the Roger Williams Park Zoo. A research based course, it was fairly rigorous, but incredibly rewarding. Not to mention I'm a huge animal lover, so being at the zoo was always a treat. Studying times vary widely. You definitely find those kids that study pretty much all of the time and have very little social life. Then there is a wide wide range in the middle where people have a good balance between working hard and partying hard. The unique thing about Brown, is I have yet to meet a person who completely blows off their work. Most people care, which makes it easier to motivate yourself. I mean, hey, I guess if everyone's doing it...