<p>Does Brown really have a strong sense of “social belonging”? As in you there’s always someone around you can hang out with, there’s always a friend you know in the cafeteria, you generally know at least one person in each class, etc…
I know that many people have extolled the fact that it’s such a small campus, which lends a sense of shared “community,” but that doesn’t really tell me much about social subgroups.</p>
<p>I’ve read many times that after the first year, things can often be centered around cliques and it becomes much harder to make new friends and expand beyond your limited social circle, even if you do participate in clubs/activities (those clubs can be the basis for that limited circle?)
And from talking to other college graduates, this seems pretty much true for any college where students are randomly assigned dorms spread across campus, rather than assigned to distinct community units (e.g. residential colleges/houses at other universities, a feature I really like…).</p>
<p>I’ve also looked at the specific theme houses at Brown, but none of the themes appeal to me, and, again, it seems like you’re going to be pigeonholing yourself with a specific type of people.
Any thoughts?</p>
<p>Brown’s a small enough school and campus that you do end up knowing someone just about everywhere. It’s also a friendly place - I’ve several times sat down at a table in the Ratty with one other person that I didn’t know and it’s always been a worthwhile conversation. For me, I have a set of friends that I made freshman year (mostly based around where we lived), but they’re not the people I live with now, as I chose to live in one of the co-ed fraternities. I also have different groups of friends from different student groups - sometimes these groups intersect, and sometimes they don’t.</p>
<p>Small enough to always see someone you know. Big enough that you’ll always meet someone new. </p>
<p>Program houses and Greek life isn’t all that big at Brown and while it’s true that Brown doesn’t facilitate “social bonding” through residential housing or colleges like Yale or similar colleges, it doesn’t mean that it’s difficult or hard to meet people or to make a solid group of friends. </p>
<p>Take for instance transfer students. I know several who came here post-freshman year who were initially concerned with the social aspect of coming to Brown. They’ve all adjusted very well and you can barely tell that they’ve been here for less than a year/semester. On the flip side, I have several friends who grew to realize that their initial freshman group of friends weren’t really the kind of people they wanted to hang out with and they were able to find other friend groups and things pretty much worked themselves out. </p>
<p>As kind of part of the individualistic nature of Brown’s liberal learning, you just have to be a go-getter in these kinds of things. I agree with bruno14 and it’s generally very accepted and encouraged to just sometimes plop down and talk to random people you see at Dining Halls or around campus (provided that you’re not interrupting or disturbing them). No one bites!</p>
<p>As a parent I can only report second hand…but. When my daughter moved off campus Jr year, she went off meal plan to save money. But she ended up signing up again because she missed going to the Ratty and hanging out with people, so she did the off-campus plan. </p>
<p>She also didn’t click with dorm people from freshman year (sub free), but got on well after that, roomed with closer friends that she made for sophmore year.</p>
<p>She considered joining Zete, a coed frat, because she had friends and fun there, but decided no.</p>
<p>I think freshman year there is a tendency to make a lot of friends from mostly your dorm, but it’s definitely not a hindrance to making new ones sophomore year and down the line. I think cliques seem to play less of a role here than some of the other places where I have friends (UMaine, for instance), but I personally can’t compare. As far as clubs go, I think they tend to broaden social circles rather than hinder them. My friends are in a bunch of different clubs that I’m not in, and are friends with those people as well as myself. Same probably goes for me with the clubs that I’ve been in but my friends haven’t</p>
<p>which kind of leads to this subject:</p>
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<p>My first inclination is to say yes and no. It’s not a huge campus, but there are generally clusters that tend to develop self-sufficiently within. As a freshman there have generally been groups within Keeney, Pembroke, and Perkins (the latter apparently no longer being a freshman dorm after this year) that develop, but that doesn’t prevent them from intermixing. Personally, I lived in Keeney so I knew a lot of people there, and also knew a bunch of people from Perkins, but I’ve met a fair number of people during my sophomore year as well that I didn’t before.</p>
<p>All in all, I think Brown has less of a cliquish nature than one would suspect, and these social groups are pretty permeable anyway</p>