<p>You are certainly right to a degree, ucbalumnus, but I also got the sense that the courses are often designed differently at Brown: You don’t always need to waste a semester taking a dull general Intro to X class just to be able to take a more interesting variant that has Intro to X as a prerequisite. Since Brown encourages buffet-style sampling, you’ll often see an interesting class that incorporates the general intro material while focusing on a more interesting specialized sub-area of the field.</p>