<p>If you can compare kicking a ball with an artist’s talent…</p>
<p>And we’re not even talking about Ronaldo here, just some fat dudes who run with a ball and try to avoid others running into them. If at least you were playing european football…</p>
<p>And qualified at their school to what extent? That they came here and ***** about how hard phys 7 and math 20 are?</p>
<p>Yes, you can compare them. Both take time and practice and personal motivation. Both of them deal with natural talent. Both of them provide a result that is pleasing to the general public. Different in execution, but similar in nature.</p>
<p>You keep switching what sport you are directing your comments at. There is a distinction. Make one and stick with it.</p>
<p>Those kids who may complain about the level of difficulty in math or science courses could be excelling in their social science or English courses. You have no bearing in judging their intellectual capacity because you find one course easy that others have trouble with. Come on, you boast your intelligence, so don’t be ignorant.</p>
<p>Goodnight.</p>
<p>Negru, you are just flat out wrong. If you haven’t been making the most of the AMAZING resources at your disposal either you </p>
<p>A) Haven’t been seeking them out
B) Been too close-minded to benefit
C) Have unreasonable expectations</p>
<p>And please spare me any lectures about how I’m wrong. I’m soon to graduate and know hundreds of people here. While it is true that Brown is not as rich as some other schools you just paint a picture so distorted from the reality many of us experience that I must wonder if you are at the same school.</p>
<p>We’ve already been through this. Fine, science isn’t their thing. But if I’ll take english 11 or africana studies, I won’t keep *****ing how hard they are. I’ll do my best and fail the course if I have to. Not make a big deal, let everyone else know, and be proud of how stupid I am in some subject.</p>
<p>Everyone is free to move from his chair, but ffs don’t make a fuss about it. Move, then pass or fail, it’s that simple.</p>
<p>anyway</p>
<p>lets get to the money
where does it all go
what investments are you talking about?
how about if instead of growing tomatoes, they’d buy books needed for courses and put them in the libraries, so students already paying $$$ wouldn’t have to buy new books every semester. </p>
<p>Also maybe someone can explain to me why books here are so expensive? 200$ for an intro to mechanics book?</p>
<p>Books are expensive because of the way the print industry functions. They make a tremendous amount of their profit overcharging for textbooks which people need and will buy in book form year after year. That’s not a Brown thing, that’s a publishing industry of America thing.</p>
<p>The endowment is all invested in various ways and pulling in a lot of money in interest/capital gains each year that continues to fund the university. There are many other permanent funds that exist in investments to continue to keep alive programs-- like the UTRA which has a fund, the interest/gains from that fund are used to fund UTRAs. To get more money for UTRAs, the U has to pour money into that fund or get donations directly to it, and both of these things are going to be happening soon it looks like, especially for the during the semester UTRAs. David Kennedy, the new VP for International Relations recently met with myself and several other students along with Dean Bergeron in Watson to discuss ways to improve Brown’s international standing and how to internationalize our campus to a greater extent. One issue that came up as an “easy fix” was increased funding for UTRAs during the semester since it’s difficult for international students to get other jobs and because it’s difficult for them to stay over the summer for UTRAs.</p>
<p>I also think you’re painting a rather distorted picture that’s nothing like the University I attend, but I’m hopeful that after more than one semester here you’ll find that to be true as well. Realize that at many institutions when students are being paid to “do research”, they’re actually cleaning glassware or preparing for that professor’s lab, cleaning, organizing, and generally not involved with the work that’s cutting edge. At Brown, in my lab, and in many labs, an undergraduate is held to similar standards (although obviously with lower time expectations) as graduate students-- I’m engaged on a project with no grad students, I answer directly to the PI. I have to go through the same progress report process as graduate students and I’m expected to have a similar level of grasp on what it is I’m doing (though not necessarily the scope in all cases). That’s just not true many places.</p>
<p>You could try buying books used on Amazon to save money. I purchased one book on there for $2. I was lucky last year and had a teacher who made his own book and sold it in the bookstore for $3.</p>
<p>Well, you’re quite the naysayer. Is there really any harm in setting up a small, student-run garden to provide some organic, locally grown food to the dining halls and spread awareness of sustainability? For such a purportedly liberal school, Brown is pretty environmentally unfriendly, and I applaud anyone trying to bring this issue to the forefront. Or maybe all of the money at Brown should fund endeavours of which you approve - none of that silly dancing, farming, writing stuff?</p>
<p>Modestmelody, Brown and all other American universities are in a great way responsible for the overpriced textbooks because they put up with it. </p>
<p>Negru, nearly all of the criticisms you have of Brown are criticisms you could have of almost any other college in the United States. What you really appear to dislike is the American educational system, not just Brown. Fredmurtz is right in that you have unreasonable expectations of American education; youre expecting it to mirror the academically rigorous European system which it simply doesnt. Im not <em>that</em> familiar with European education, but I do know that students arent required to pay exorbitant prices for textbooks, education is free, and admission is based solely on academic merit; if you cannot excel academically then you go to trade school. Also, the United States is one of the ONLY countries in which secondary schools, not private organizations but secondary schools, provide funding for sports programs and similar extracurriculars; sports are an important part of our culture and our universities profit financially from them. Kids in the United States grow up going to baseball games with their dads and eating hot dogs and watching football on Sunday. In Europe, the fact that Im really passionate about yoga and diving and have some professional modeling under my belt would do absolutely nothing for my college admission chances. In the US it would. So thats why you cant expect everyone at Brown University or any other ivy league whos enrolled in a course to be passionate about the subject or even have all the prerequisite knowledge or even like it. Students here are not admitted on their academic merit alone. Extracurricular activities like sports are part of the American way and carry quite a bit of weight in admissions. Stop expecting of the US what you would and should expect of Europe. </p>
<p>Yet despite all this I still know exactly what youre talking about. In Texas, football is god and to attack football or its place in the educational system would make you a very unpopular person, just as it has made you very unpopular on this message board. My fathers a professor at UT and is forced by university officials to pass students with the academic competence of a 5th grader simply because theyre bringing literally millions of dollars via their football activities to the university. The university pays thousands of dollars to academic tutors each month just to help these athletes pass their classes, and also gives them several thousand dollars in spending money every month. Its pretty unfair when you think about it. Why should an ACADEMIC institution be graduating students with academic degrees when they have absolutely no academic talents? What makes it even worse is that other students and even faculty are aware of whats happening but simply ignore it because to their mind, the Longhorn football team = Sunday entertainment and god forbid that its taken away from them. </p>
<p>At an ivy league school its of course not nearly as bad, but some of this still goes on and its somehow justified with the same reasoning. Again, I recommend you look at Princeton or the University of Chicago. Both have a more rigorous academic reputation and theyre less liberal artsy fartsy. Princeton also has more dough. </p>
<p>All of this made me remember a video I saw on Youtube about Brown elections. Take a look: [YouTube</a> - Brown University: A UCS Election Documentary<a href=“I%C2%92d%20rather%20stay%20up%20all%20night%20talking%20to%20the%20balding,%20ugly%20candidate%20than%20the%20athlete%20ANY%20day.%20The%20athlete%20was%20obviously%20less%20qualified,%20why%20did%20he%20win?%20Why%20does%20he%20have%20more%20friends?%20He%20seems%20rather%20dull%20in%20comparison%20to%20the%20baldy%20and%20the%20kid%20with%20the%20fro.”>/url</a></p>
<p>Jesus, Im sorry to have written so much. Aha, no one is actually going to read the post now. Excuse the typographical errors too tired to edit.</p>
<p>Isabella</p>
<p>PS: And Isabella who the **** are you?
hmm
I seem to have ruffled your feathers a bit. This should cheer you (and everyone else) up: [url=<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrShK-NVMIU]YouTube”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrShK-NVMIU]YouTube</a> - Monty Python - International Philosophy](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpQQawuYnLI]YouTube”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpQQawuYnLI)</p>
<p>Its supremely funny.</p>
<p>Isabella, what do you mean when you tell him to “look” at Princeton? What do you know of Princeton and UChicago being harder? Which school do you go to?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This is wrong. Sorry.</p>
<p>CalTech mirrors the environment Negru is seeking. Neither Princeton nor UChicago match Negru’s main complaints in various other threads, but I digress.</p>
<p>A significant amount of money right now at Brown is being spent expanding the faculty, a point I failed to make earlier, and is being slotted into several major building projects that should be underway soon and completed around 2010.</p>
<p>what surprises me and keeps me ranting about these whole things, is that in a society that pretends to be all for consumer rights, you have this fraudulent fake advertising going on at elite colleges
it’s normal for you to sue companies because they didn’t write on their product that tobacco may produce cancer, but my ranting about these issues is out of place?</p>
<p>and even so it’s beyond the point. My personal tastes about an educational system or another make no difference. I am however raising some points. Instead of telling me to look at other schools, you should think about what I’m saying.
If I would’ve been talking about racial discrimination, I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t start sending me back to africa. But because I’m not satisfied with the academics and overall culture, you do send me back. And then you wonder why the whole rest of the world has a bad impression of the US.
And it’s pretty funny actually, before coming here, I was probably the only person I knew or heard about to approve of the US in general. Now that I’m here, and see the hypocrisy in everything, the PC-ness ********, and basically how the so called intellectual-liberal americans hate about their country what I thought was best, and what ironically got them where they are now…I completely changed my view.</p>
<p>negru, I honestly don’t think you’d be happy anywhere.</p>
<p>Anyway, Isabella, I used to feel that way about the UCS election featured in that documentary. Then, the jock ended up being a wonderful president (the best in my time here, I’d say) and the fat balding nerd ended up being a serial plagiarist who has the distinction of being the subject of corrections in the editorial pages of the Brown Daily Herald and the New York Times.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.browndailyherald.com/news/2007/11/05/Corrections/[/url]”>http://www.browndailyherald.com/news/2007/11/05/Corrections/</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/07/opinion/l07japan.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/07/opinion/l07japan.html</a></p>
<p>Over and over again you say these things negru, and I’ve seen absolutely none of it in my time here. It’s astonishing how reclusive and judgmental you’ve become after one semester where you clearly simply haven’t found the right people to interact with.</p>
<p>Well, my view (though it very probably is a cultural thing), is that if the system has some flaw you should complain about it. If you don’t complain about anything, not only is the system likely still flawed anyway, but you have a problem too.
Don’t worry, If I were in yurp or some other place, I’d complain just as much, probably just about different things. It’s normal. Actually it’s not normal, but not complaining certainly isn’t normal.
Maybe because I associate general happiness and content with ignorance. Being satisfied in a place with clearly so many flaws is not my thing. I don’t believe in the “don’t worry, be happy” crap.
So, since I’m beyond remedy anyway, instead of looking for solutions for me, you should check out what I’m saying. And right now the general idea is that the US educational system is two years behind the rest of the world. Now, I don’t really give a crap about that, it doesn’t affect me vey much, so there is really no point in bashing me for saying this. “oh no, go away go away, leave us in our perfect little happy bubble, we don’t want to know what’s outside, we can stay here forever”. </p>
<p>I found enough people to interact with. It happens though that most are european, mostly eastern european, and they all share my views. However they don’t really care about it. Ya so sorry I don’t sit in my little corner and mind my own business, and come here to disturb and question your peaceful happy existence.</p>
<p>I’m far from peaceful about my Brown experience. If you were aware of the elements of Brown that exist to be critical of many of these issues, you’d know that I’m right in the throw of things, dealing directly with the people who have the power to change the university in my attempt to leave the university better than when I got here.</p>
<p>But, having come here full well knowing what I was getting into, my contentment comes from the fact that I know I am able to do things uniquely at Brown that’s not offered anywhere else and it’s those things that keep me satisfied. As you said, many of yours (and my) complaints are applicable anywhere, but I’m 100% positive I ended up at the best of many flawed places.</p>
<p>All I’m saying is this-- your posts wreak of two things: a student who had no sense of what a broad based liberal education is, or did have a sense and didn’t have an interest in acquiring one (in which case Brown is a poor choice because this is a crucial aspect of our core ideology), and a student who has only had the opportunity to experience a very small segment of the university-- its structural offerings and social capital (both students and faculty).</p>
<p>All I’m saying, is I thought I knew Brown when I was in your position, and the Brown I see now is very different. Heck, it’s even different from the Brown I saw 6months ago.</p>
<p>Negru,
I have read a lot of your posts. You are clearly VERY dissatisfied with Brown partway through your first semester. That’s OK. It may be a poor fit for you. It so happens that every Brown student I have ever met seems to adore the school. So, while the school may not be perfect in every way, the majority seems to like it just fine. More than just fine. I don’t know that Brown is what you say but simply that it doesn’t match what you seem to expect or want. I don’t know what school in the US would match what you want, but that’s another story. Not all schools are for all people. </p>
<p>I have a kid who is currently a senior at Brown. She LOVES Brown and has from day one. I am sure she is going to be very sad when she has to graduate and leave. I have never heard one negative remark by her about anything to do with the college and as parents, we have not had one negative experience or feeling either. We couldn’t be more pleased and are grateful our kid has had such an amazing experience there. </p>
<p>I can’t run down all of your complaints on the many threads on which you have posted. I’ll comment on a couple you made here. Your stereotyping of athletes is disconcerting to me. For one thing, it is funny for me to read that you feel athletes at Brown are “worshipped.” Brown is a school that is quite the opposite in that it is not a rah rah let’s follow our athletes school. Not at all. Anyway, you make assumptions that athletes don’t have smarts. Did it ever occur to you that someone can be highly intelligent and a high academic achiever AND be skilled and talented in a sport they care about? Brown has LOTS of students that fit this description. Brown is filled with students who are not merely excellent students but people who excel in something else besides academics (be it sports or many other EC endeavors). In fact, one thing I admire about the many Brown students I have met is how they are able to excel at academics while being heavily engaged in other pursuits. Perhaps this is a cultural thing for you and is not the way in your country but at at top American colleges, they value students who not only achieve in the classroom, but make other contributions as leaders in other endeavors. Exceling at an EC, such as sports, does not preclude being an academic standout. To the contrary. </p>
<p>My D was not a recruited athlete and got into Brown the regular way. However, she is on a varsity sport team at Brown. I can tell you that the peers I have met on her team excel at academics (most are Academic All Americans), do research, and are primed as applicants to med school, law school, PHD programs, architecture school, and so forth. Actually, many of her teammates are going onto med school. They are not academic slouches by any means. My own kid is applying to professional graduate schools. These students have to put in enormous hours into their sport daily and on weekends. It also involves travel. They do this all the while they are taking demanding classes (some are in orgo, for example), are in other ECs, do research, or for instance, my kid is a TA for a course as well. </p>
<p>It sounds like you spend time missing classes and outside of class time drinking and so forth. That is how you are choosing to spend your free time. Why do you frown upon those who spend their free time engaged in athletic competition and collaboration? If anything, they are spending the time you are spending on your “activities” in worthwhile endeavors. I see you posted at 4 AM. There is no way my kid could be online at 4 AM. She has to be up at 6 or 7 often for her sport. You post online a LOT. There is no way my kid would have time to do that. If that is what floats your boat, cool. Why be negative that someone else is using the time you spend drinking or online to go to sports practices and competitions? You are not doing academic pursuits every waking hour either!</p>
<p>I have read you think many students aren’t too bright and that the courses are not challenging enough for you. Brown is a challenging university and the student body represents some of America’s finest academic and other talented students. I am not sure where you would be happy but if you are this dissatisfied with Brown, it may make sense to explore other options and to ascertain if these other schools are a better fit for what you want. I can assure you that at any highly selective American college, you are going to find students who not only achieve academically but also in other endeavors in their ECs and so forth. </p>
<p>Perhaps you don’t want a liberal arts education and this is a poor fit. I can’t tell. Brown is not for all people. What made you choose this school? My kid explored the school in depth before choosing to enroll and it has met all of her college criteria and expectations and then some. Some factors made you prefer to enroll in this school. I am sorry it is not as you expected. Either work to achieve some changes in either the school or in creating situations that would work better for you. Brown has SO much leeway in allowing you to create educational opportunities. Seek those out. There are independent studies, research, and so on. You are not locked into doing what you don’t like. You have the freedom to choose and create the educational experience you want. Take advantage of that. This is one school where you don’t have to take classes you are not interested in, don’t like, etc. Seek out what you are looking for. If you can’t find it at Brown, create it. And if you continue to be this unhappy, seek out transferring. There is no need to be unhappy at a college. Seek out changes within. If you can’t make that work, seek out a school where you perceive you will be happier. </p>
<p>My kid could not be any more deliriously happy with her choice to attend Brown and her four years of experience there. I wish that for any college student. I hope you find it wherever that may be for YOU.</p>
<p>Negru, I understand your complaints and I don’t understand why the others on this board are so wrapped up in defending Brown that they refuse to acknowledge any of the general truths in your argument. Granted, you’ve exaggerated many things but your basic argument is still valid. I’m actually quite surprised of Brown’s students. As a prospective applicant who really loves Brown’s philosophy and style, I would have expected the students to be a bit more magnanimous. Your comments about the College in combination with the ugly and dismissive responses you received have really painted an uninviting picture of the school and especially its students. By virtue of having grown up in another country, your experiences are naturally going to be very different than that of an American’s. Just because other Brown students haven’t shared your experiences there, doesn’t make your experiences/complaints unfounded or ridiculous or lies. </p>
<p>I am also not saying you should go back to Europe. I was merely commenting on the fact that the US is NOT Europe and this is why you’re experiencing the disillusionment that you are. The rigor here is not comparable. Your statement that US education is two years behind its European counterpart is probably true, I really don’t know, though. I also agree that complaining is important, particularly when those complaints are directed at such important topics as education and the dubious advertising schemes + pretense colleges use to attract students and make more money – especially liberal arts colleges (i.e. Swarthmore). Brown is not innocent of all this. </p>
<p>“Isabella, what do you mean when you tell him to “look” at Princeton? What do you know of Princeton and UChicago being harder? Which school do you go to?”</p>
<p>I’m still in high school but I know somewhat about Princeton because my older brother’s currently studying there, and my dad was a visiting professor at the University of Chicago. Modestmelody, given Negru’s interests, those two colleges would have provided him with more resources and a superior education. In addition, they really aren’t as artsy fartsy as Brown is. I like artsy fartsiness, though. </p>
<p>Well, lunch period is over and I have to run back to class. Did anyone check out the international philosophy video?</p>
<p>Isabella</p>
<p>Why do Universities give so much to student athletes? Isabella, you answered you own question.</p>
<p>“because theyre bringing literally millions of dollars via their [sport] to the university.”</p>
<p>In the end, all that matters is what is going to make the school money, because without money, things aren’t getting done. Americans love their sports, and it has turned into an incredibly lucrative activity on collegiate and professional levels. End of story.</p>
<p>I still disagree with your remarks, Isabella, as a physical sciences student at Brown. I’d like to know how you substantiate your claim, as I understood it quite well the first time you made it.</p>
<p>As a science student, I can tell you that I have found 0 hurdles or limitations to what I can do at Brown. I often find many of these comparisons based on quantitative BS results in little or no qualitative difference. I’m wondering where you think the differences lie. I also don’t th9ink that you can dismiss Brown as “artsy fartsy” in the face of the superior academics of two other elite institutions. That kind of bias and thinking comes directly out of 1980s critics of academia and frankly, was as ridiculous then as it is now.</p>
<p>Make no mistake, I think there are many very fair criticism to make of Brown as an institution. That’s why on I’m the Task Force on Undergraduate Education. It’s why I’m applying for the CCC. It’s why tonight, I’m having dinner with Dean Bergeron to discuss advising at Brown. I think it’s unfair to say that we’re giving Negru a hard time and being dismissive when his experience is simply so counter to those had by others.</p>
<p>I’ve met Negru and like him, I just think that he needs to capitalize more on opportunities available to him which require significant student initiative as well as acculturation into the US academic atmosphere. There are MAJOR differences in what the US thinks the undergraduate degree is/should be and what Europe thinks it should be, and it has nothing to do with being two years behind, it has to do with having additional educational goals that don’t exist on the same level at most foreign institutions.</p>
<p>Notice, for instance, when Negru complained about the incompetence of his adviser I sympathized with him. While I understood WHY his adviser wasn’t able to do a good job, I was not willing to ACCEPT this as a forgone conclusion. When Negru makes a statement that people aren’t here to learn or are worshiping athletes…well, that’s simply not true.</p>
<p>I’d also make the point that negru is looking for a focused, extremely challenging, science education. Nothing about UChicago or Princeton is fundamentally better suited to provide this than Brown. In fact, their focus on the liberal arts education is way stronger than something negru seems to be looking for. Neither of those schools are schools I’d list as fits to Negru’s goals, though they’re both excellent. Neither of those schools have any apparent advantages, unless you’d like to explain them to me, Isabella, over Brown in providing that education. I’d argue that Brown provides negru with research opportunities, opportunities to take graduate courses, and the ability to abuse our open curriculum to not have to take courses outside of the sciences, all of which makes Brown better suited than UChicagos 18 mandatory courses on “other” knowledge that wouldn’t appeal to negru, at least not based on his posts.</p>
<p>FWIW, let’s not glorify the European system either. While it may have been more beneficial for negru to go somewhere and study one subject for three years to get his undergraduate degree with little/no flexibility and little/no material outside of the concentration, I’ve had many friends who’ve found studying abroad at foreign institutions far easier than work in the states after they began to understand the system and it’s expectations on them.</p>