<p>This may seem an odd question, but I’m curious as to whether students have interaction with other year groups @ Brown or whether the social situation is similar to that of high school - you spend most time within your own graduating class.</p>
<p>I didn’t have that experience with high school, so I can’t compare, but…freshman year, people seem to spend time primarily with freshman. As you get older, though, especially because of the housing situation, people spend more time with people outside their class. Although my closest friends are in my year, I have a good number of friends in '13 and a few in '11. Most of these people I met through classes, TAing, or in the dorm.</p>
<p>I’m a freshman, and I end up spending at least half my time with older students, so it might just depend on the person. It’s mostly people I’ve met through classes and student groups. I would still say, like Uroogla, that my closest friends are in my year.</p>
<p>Brown’s housing and dining situations tends to emphasize relationships within your year, potentially at the expense of relationships outside your year. I have a few very good friends outside my year through debate, and one or two from my classes, but because I lived with freshman and, more importantly, ate with freshman last year, most ym friends are my year.</p>
<p>Schools with a “house” system, like UChicago, have more cross-class relationships, because you eat and live with your house including older students. However, with Brown, I’ve found most people have a few to many different social “circles” (NOT like high-school cliques, except for a few exceptions), which are mostly comprised of people within their class. I think currently I have a CS circle, a TA circle, my suitemate circle, debate circle, and wider indie/hipster, freshman dorm and taekwondo circles. There’s overlap between these circles, and I find a lot of my friends from one circle also (unbeknownst to me) have friends in my other circles, but for example my suitemates know very few of my friends from my freshman dorm circle.</p>