Current Brown students taking questions!

<p>Placido, this is not the thread to ask that question, but I will say that the ONLY recommendations that work are from people who know you well – who either taught you or coached you or supervised you at work. If this trustee doesn’t know you, it won’t help you one iota.</p>

<p>I’m not a current student (I’m an ancient alum), but I think how people react to Providence partly depends on where you are coming from. A kid who grew up in Manhattan is going to feel very differently than a kid from an Iowa farm.</p>

<p>Providence is a small city that has some taste of urban life – there’s a downtown with tall buildings, public transportation, horrible schools, poverty. There are ethnic neighborhoods and ethnic restaurants. It’s the state capital, and has a pretty good medium size daily paper, a good theater company. But it’s small enough to be very manageable and not overwhelming. A New Yorker may find it boring, a small-town person will find it exiting. Brown itself is in an affluent part of Providence, with a lot of historic buildings. It is not green and tree-filled like a rural campus, but it’s not a concrete jungle like NYU.</p>

<p>My favorite word for describing the Brown campus is eclectic.</p>

<p>Awesome. I love eclectic b/c I’m not too conventional, myself.
I like how you said “ancient alum”, fireandrain (:</p>

<p>I hope there’s something left of the Cog Sci DUG – I was one of a few active members once it got re-started a few years ago.</p>

<p>I heard that a neuroscience major is more linguistic oriented. is this true? how is it different than majoring in neuroscience at any other school, if it is? would you say it is a strong department?</p>

<p>The neuro major at Brown has nothing to do with linguistics, and it’s fantastic. Brown is one of a few schools that established neuro as a field of undergraduate study, and one of the major undergraduate neuro textbooks was written to teach neuro at Brown.</p>

<p>mgsinc––what year were you, if you don’t mind my asking? The CogSci DUG had a table at the activities fair my freshman year (2009), but I haven’t really heard much since. I blame CLPS :)</p>

<p>I was '08. We had a fledgling little group of four regular members, but I was a bit worried about what would happen after we all had graduated. Unfortunately, people in Cog and Ling just don’t seem that interested in a DUG, and the people in Psych (at least pre-merger) were of a completely different ilk.</p>

<p>If it’s defunct again and there’s interest, you should look into getting it back off the ground! The administration/department will give you money to have events, etc.</p>

<p>The Linguistics DUG still exists–-we’ve done a few things this year. Then again, it’s about 10 people, with a handful of interested others. I’ll see what I can do about CogSci, especially since the CogNeuro crew would probably want in.</p>

<p>There’s apparently a CLPS research mailing list, or something of that nature. I need to bother Serre about getting on it (I asked him about what I might do to get involved in the kind of research he does, and he said sign up for the mailing list…)</p>

<p>chsowlflax17––also check JobMail or the student job site regularly.</p>

<p>I have a question about foreign language classes. I’ve heard that at other universities foreign language classes are generally held early in the morning and everyday. Is this true at Brown?</p>

<p>Also, what are some examples of classes that are mandatory S/NC, and why is it mandatory? </p>

<p>And finally, this may seem like a silly question, but has Brown lived up to your expectations? Is there anything you wish you had known about the school before you went?</p>

<p>thanks!</p>

<p>Early in the morning hasn’t proven to be true from my experience, but yes, many language classes meet 5 days a week, particularly beginning levels. I’ve found this to be helpful, because you get to speak in the language frequently and consistently. </p>

<p>Mandatory S/NC classes can be things like Fiction I, or Chem 100. The FYS I took, an Anthro seminar, was mandatory S/NC. Basically they are just situations for, for one reason or another, it either isn’t appropriate or possible to give a grade.</p>

<p>Re: Languages:</p>

<p>I’ve taken 6 terms of modern languages (at the 100-400 level). Italian 100-200 met daily, as do most normal intro language classes. German 100-400 met 4x a week. My Italian class was noon MWF and evenings (6:30 PM) TTh. My German classes were all 10 or 11 AM. My Latin and Greek classes have all been 3x a week with a mixture of times.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, I’m about to go to bed so I can get up for work as a TA, but feel free to send me a PM and I’ll try to talk about my expectations when I can.</p>

<p>I’d like to add that many artistic classes are mandatory pass/fail. This includes acting and dance classes. Also, many creative writing classes are pass/fail. I am double majoring in theater arts and literary arts. I can tell you that I have tons of mandatory pass/fail classes. But it’s mainly classes like that.</p>

<p>Is it possbile for a science-majored sophomore to start doing research with professors (or independent researches) at all?
And, can students study arts at RISD without being admitted into the dual program?</p>

<p>Thank you very much =]</p>

<p>Yes and yes.</p>

<p>Most of the time, all it takes to join a lab is an e-mail to the professor.</p>

<p>@Skycatter</p>

<p>I’m only a freshman but will be working in a lab this Spring and Summer. I just approached one of my professors and asked if there was an opening.</p>

<p>Yes, some departments have quite a lot of openings or will quickly find you a job. I started research my freshman fall.</p>

<p>i am a prospective student interested in fjournalism/ media studies. does anyone know much about the broadcasting scene at brown? o</p>

<p>Burningham17 (or anyone else who knows about the Biochem program)</p>

<p>I am interested in majoring in Biochem. What kind of classes have you taken? i am interested in undergrad research, how are the research opportunities (is it easy to get involved as a freshman?) </p>

<p>Are the Chemistry/Biochemistry classes hard-----difficulty and workload wise? </p>

<p>Thank you! You are all amazing for taking the time to answer our questions!</p>