@csibem I’m an incoming First-Year at Brown and I’m not going to lie, it definitely caught me (and a lot of other First-Years) by surprise that Brown decided to split their academic year into three semesters instead of bringing back half the student population onto campus during the Fall and Spring.
However, there are advantages to Brown’s plan. For one, having the academic year be a continuous whole the next year is beneficial for course pathways like Chemistry, where you’re taking classes (like CHEM 0350 and 0360: Organic Chemistry 1 & 2) that build off of one another and having the material remain fresh in your mind helps. Furthermore, given that mainly First-Years (and potentially Sophomores depending on whether Brown decides to have them be on-campus Fall/Spring or Falll/Summer) will be on-campus, and as Brown has a relatively small graduate student population, it would be easier to find opportunities to get involved with research or other projects with professors. This is especially because you wouldn’t be competing with the entire undergraduate student population as a whole, and once you found opportunities (volunteering, clubs, research etc.) you would be able to continue them throughout the entire year without having a gap in-between.
Brown is allowing students to take one course in the Fall, and while it’s not a full-course schedule, that one course can be used for a ton of different purposes. You could use the class to explore a passion that you love but is time-intensive and would be difficult to pursue during the academic year with a full course load, or to get a head start on a particularly difficult concentration or premed requirement (as I plan on by taking a stats course, given that math is HARD 
)
Finally, Brown’s giving us the opportunity to have a break from 12 years of constant schooling, and more importantly, to rest before we jump into another 11+ years of school to become a doctor. Though it’s not ideal, Brown’s plan for the Fall is not without its benefits.
Also, Brown’s probably one of the best places to be premed, given that the Open Curriculum coupled with no requirements gives you complete freedom to handpick everyone of your courses (except for two WRIT courses, but these are in a ton of fields,) there’s no +/- grades, you can S/NC any course (mostly electives, which I plan on using for some language courses I’m interested in but don’t want to have the fear of getting a bad grade stop me from taking,) and a lot of the courses I’ve read about aren’t graded on a curve or are designed to limit grades to a certain percentage of the population. At a introductory Chemistry course sequence Q&A, the professor flat out said that CHEM 0330 (gen chem) is NOT a weed out course, and at Brown, professors want you to study whatever you want without grades being what holds you back. Furthermore, Brown’s Med School has a ton of affiliated hospitals, so there’s lots of opportunities to gain clinical experience, volunteer etc.
Hope that helps!
