ADOCH Part II

On Tuesday I woke up after a long, fun-filled night and had breakfast with Irene before heading to the academic fair, where I talked to Professor Kenny Breuer again and also explored the booths for engineering, environmental science, gender studies, physics, religious studies, and cognitive neuroscience.

I especially enjoyed the environmental science booth, the only one that didn’t have paper fliers. A couple of other pre-frosh and I were given basically a mini-lecture about how it’s important to understand economics when you’re studying environmental science, since sustainable products can’t be put on the market (and can’t make a difference) unless they are financially sustainable, too.

After the fair, I decided to attend The American Presidency, since I missed the biology course I had planned on attending. The course was interesting at first, but I admit that I started to nod off a bit about half way through, which was probably partly due to the fact that I hadn’t slept much the night before.   

I met up with some other pre-frosh then and mingled a bit before being led to Brown’s indoor track by the Brown Band, which was super fun! I absolutely love the Brown Band. (They also performed at the talent show the night before, and were one of the groups that I considered absolutely inspiring.) All the pre-frosh were given lunch and while we were eating, we were treated to a flash mob!

The activities and club fair was also located in the indoor track, so I walked around the track, stopping at booths for clubs ranging from a political club about Burma to a swing dance club to a debate club.

I adored how open all the Brown students I met were, and how friendly and interesting they were. I stayed at the Swing Club booth for quite a while, just talking to the two Brown students who were there, who were happy to tell us how they narrowed their impressive college lists down and decided to come to Brown for its atmosphere and Open Curriculum.

I realized then that my desire to be a part of this friendly, happy, open, intelligent, inspiring and fun community had definitely grown a lot since the day before.

After exploring the “SciLi,” the science library, and the Computer Science building with a girl I had met at the barbeque, I went to the Environmental Law and Policy class I had been eager to sit in on ever since I got the invitation to attend ADOCH.

It was amazing. It was a small class, (much smaller than the American Presidency class), and the professor was interesting and great at engaging her students. She was covering a lot of interesting topics, and I learned a lot about the statistical “worth” of a person and how this relates to the way corporations make decisions about compensating their workers, or executing product recalls, when there are factory accidents. I also learned about the social inequity that really needs to be understood when one is dealing with environmental legislation, and about how scientific data about environmental phenomena needs to be framed in order for it to become acceptable enough to pass as a law. I really liked the way Professor Caroline Karp constantly said “You Econ people will like this” or “You Bio concentrators would love this,” because it showed that the interdisciplinary element that Brown advertises so much is actually there. That was great, and I told her so after class, when I also asked her about research opportunities and if I could contact her if I had more questions.

Some of Professor Karp’s students had stayed after class to ask questions, and they immediately offered to answer questions for the two other pre-frosh in the room with me. We went outside and sat on the grass for a good 25 minutes, talking about our extracurricular interests, ADOCH, and what we planned to study. They gave honest opinions about their college life, and about internships and research opportunities, as well as club experiences and environmental initiatives going on at Brown. Again, I was really grateful for how willing and eager they were to talk to us.

I went to the ADOCH closing remarks event wishing I had more time at Brown, and actually teared up about four times during the event. Biology professor Kenneth Miller made a touching speech and Brown’s oldest acapella group the Jabberwocks performed.

I left Brown utterly inspired and touched, and though I know this decision will be a tough one, I feel very lucky for having the chance to make this choice and for having the chance to make an informed choice.

I want to thank the ILC for its Fly-In Program. Thank you.