<p>Brown, with it’s open curriculum, ranking as one of the happiest campuses, and laid back atmosphere seems like a less stressful, intenseful place compared to the rest of the ivies. Is that really true or is that just a stereotype? After all, it’s still an ivy filled with determined, intelligent students. If you were one of the top ten students in your high school, how much harder did you consider Brown to be? Is wanting a more relaxed, less stressful atmposphere a good reason to pick Brown?</p>
<p>I certainly think it sounds more fun (and cooler) than the rest of the ivies. The mental image I have of Brown is of a lithe runner dashing around and screwing with the big, lumbering giants. I don’t know why I have this mental image; I only know that it’s there.</p>
<p>My D is a current soph at Brown, as I have said in several other threads. She was the top of her class in HS. She finds Brown to be a wonderful, exciting school, and one of the most intense experiences she could ever imagine. Definitely not laid back. Definitely not relaxed AT ALL. Currently, in the closing weeks of the semester, she is not sleeping, and is working harder than she ever did in HS. The Open Curriculum does not make life easy, it makes life interesting. It does not make classes fun, per se, it makes them challenging (no “Physics for Dummies” type of class just to get the distributions out of the way). This does not mean she is not happy. She is mostly very happy. But happiness does not equate with less stressful or less intense. I think the top schools are all this way, BTW. The Open Curriculum is not meant to take away the stress of learning and the challenge of growing intellectually. Going to college is hard. The Open Curriculum is meant, in my understanding, to encourage personal intellectual growth and responsibility. Brown is wonderful. But it is intense in every way, as far as I understand it from my D and her (extremely smart, interesting, interested, diverse, etc.) friends.</p>
<p>My daughter was a top student at her HS, but her HS was not one of the most rigorous out there – so the transition from HS to college for her was tough. The first semester was an adjustment, and she had to work very hard. There are students at Brown who went to very rigorous high schools who find college to be easier than HS. In some cases, significantly easier.</p>
<p>What is wonderful about Brown (this is true when I was there 30 years ago and now) is that it is up to the individual student to decide how intense it should be. The drive comes from within, as opposed to a competition with fellow students. Some students are very intense. Others aren’t. There are some “guts” (i.e., physics for dummies classes) – some students take many of these, decide they don’t care about getting straight As, etc. – for them, life is a breeze. Others take 5 classes a semester, or want straight As for grad school – for them, it’s intense.</p>
<p>It’s as intense as you want it to be. </p>
<p>Like others have said, the intensity will be defined by you. </p>
<p>You can relax here if you want to. You can also become a stress ball if you decide to overload on activities or take really hard classes all at once. But that happens everywhere. </p>
<p>We definitely do have gut classes. Rocks for Jocks, for example. If you walk into a classroom and it’s full of buff beefy guys who flex and kiss their muscles(true story. My freshman year roommate had a very fun time re-enacting the scene for us later at dinner), it’s probably a gut class.</p>
<p>I create all the stress in my life. I have chosen to challenge myself, I have chosen to be involved in many things at once all of which are important to me, I have not worked enough on my own time management skills, etc.</p>
<p>Brown students have the power to destroy themselves under pressure or to have a pace not so different than high school. I find that most of us are here to place ourselves under that constant challenge, no matter how much and for how long we resist these things.</p>
<p>In the end, I’ve never been so happy to be so stressed in my life.</p>
<p>justbreathe (off topic): I taught a student who did that (flexed and kissed his muscles) and used to recreate it for my family at dinner. Always got laughs.</p>
<p>I only do a couple things and I don’t think it’s very intense at all, and I’m a hard science major. My GPA is decent but not great, but even if I was gunning for a super-high GPA it still wouldn’t be terribly hard. Engineering and CS majors are definitely exceptions to this, those folks work all the time, but in general I think our curves are a bit friendlier than other schools of a similar calibre. It’s not like you have to pull constant all-nighters and **** as long as you have a decent study plan… I’m as big a procrastinator as anyone I know in most circumstances, but I only get no sleep maybe one night a semester towards the end of finals (although it’s a bit different as a science major, where you have more exams and fewer papers so it’s harder to put things off).</p>
<p>Have you ever heard of the horror story of the professor in college who grades on a vicious curve so all the pre-med students are gunning for the A and beating each other up and somehow you can get like a 93% on the exam and a B as your grade?</p>
<p>Yeah, doesn’t really happen here. I’ve only ever heard of and seen curves help people. So none of that pre-meds attacking each other stuff. Although a bunch of them(though not all) are still neurotic and annoying, as they are everywhere. </p>
<p>I think “intensity” for you will vary very much depending on what your high school background is and your own drive and the classes you choose. Those with solid preparation tend to hit the ground running. Those from weaker backgrounds, I’ve noticed, tend to falter at first and struggle with feeling as if they have to “catch-up” to their peers. </p>
<p>Though as elpope says, CS or Engineering? Have fun living in the CIT and/or Barus & Holley! (Not that you can’t have an active social life outside of it…it’s just harder…and requires more all-nighters.)</p>
<p>I think it depends on the classes you take.</p>