Brown! Finally!

We've finally begun our Brown program, and I have to say I'm enjoying it immensely. In a matter of hours we saw the school, met a huge amount of new people, had an orientation, and were unloaded into our Dorms. Its a lot to take in, but I love the diversity of people I've encountered in these few hours. The most ironic part is that this start of the program has included the most rest time since I we've been on the East Coast. 

The Dorms have their ups and downs. It turns out, I don't have a roommate. This is both a pro and a con. I do get privacy, but I don't get the college experience of living with a roommate. My room is on the 4th floor, which gets exceedingly hot. Luckily, I think I'll be spending much of my time at Brown in classes and outside doing activities. 

I always thought that we would be taking our classes with a mix of college and high school students. I discovered today that everyone in our class will be kids our age. This could create a college-like experience where you are taking classes with people of the same age range. I think I would have liked being with older people as a change of pace from high school, but I have yet to see how I like it.

Out of all the colleges, I feel like I'll have an unfair bias towards Brown. At Yale or MIT, I didn't get to actually live on campus. Tours are great and all, but they simply can't match the experience of living and taking classes at the school. For example, I didn't enjoy Providence all that much for the first few days we stayed. Now that I've seen the area of the city next to Brown, I like it a lot more. The area around Brown is a lot quieter, and reminds me of why I liked the Dartmouth campus.

People were complaining about the food, but we ate dinner at the dining hall and I thought it was pretty darn delicious. Maybe I have lower standards than most, but I could definitely live with eating there for 4 years. 

There's not too much to say about Brown yet, but I'm really excited for my first class tomorrow. I'd like to finish by saying I'm extremely grateful that the Ivy League Connection is paying for this. I didn't realize at first, but after talking with some students here at Brown, I discovered just how much money goes into our stay here alone. The Summer@Brown program may look like a normal summer program, but its something I never would have been able to afford without the Ivy League Connection.