As a freshman, homesick and heartsick, I hated it when people would gush at me, "Don't you just love Brown?" Er, not really, I would think, while I stretched my facial muscles into a wide grin and nodded enthusiastically. Instead of eliciting my fake enraptures, I should have been viewed as a resource, able to look at Brown with a critical eye. My suggestions should have been sought and my unmet expectations addressed. Instead, our counsels to freshman often involve sympathetic nods and assurances that they'll get used to things, and that everything works out in the end. As far as advice goes, this is pretty vague and unhelpful. We would do well to consciously remember how difficult freshman year is, in terms of unmet expectations and jarringly new experiences that we were expected to take in stride.
In the interest of jogging our memories, I will list a few of my jarring experiences that I extend to many Brown freshmen. To begin, our daily interactions with adults are limited to two kinds: the self-assured and successful professors we are trying to impress, and those that are serving and cleaning up after us. The absence of adults with an education between an advanced degree and a high school diploma is disorienting. Furthermore, kids younger than ourselves are wiping down our tables and swiping at the fettuccini we spill as we fill our plates. I think about how a family's income can make the difference between serving food at the cafeteria and eating there. The arbitrariness of success smacks me in the face every time I see them. Where I once just sat down at the dinner table and had my parents to thank for my meal, I suddenly have to thank a faceless chef and countless immigrant workers.
Oh, and we hardly ever see young children unless we get the memo to start volunteering in Providence.
Those famous conversations that are supposed to keep us up at night — and that we learn to avoid in subsequent years — just give us a headache, and the next morning we wish we had slept earlier. Personally, I usually walked away in frustration from (or worse, remained stuck in) conversations with people who just talk too much and listen too little and think they are so open-minded when really their mind is already made up.
Living with a roommate is also one of those jarring freshman experiences. All freshmen go from living with their families (with whom they share common values, interests and traditions) to living with a randomly assigned stranger, whose values and interests may be completely at odds with their own. It's an experience that we half-expect and (to the outside observer) seem to take in stride, yet it is a difficult transition to make.
As far as support goes, I know we have many avenues for freshmen currently, such as Meiklejohns and advisors for academic matters, RCs, MPCs and WPCs for all types of crises in the dorms. Also, freshmen will often seek out older students as mentors and friends to talk to about their struggle. However, it's often not enough. Few young people can open up with strangers (i.e. their residential peer leaders) even if helping them is in the RPL job description. Furthermore, upperclassmen (even the RPLs) are pretty busy and may only have time for one or two meaningful conversations with struggling freshmen.
Here's a proposition: why not make an online forum where freshmen can counsel one another and relate to each other's feeling. It might be that just reading other freshmen's accounts, experiencing the same exact emotions, will alleviate some of their own stresses and anxieties. I imagine there would be a forum for discussing homesickness (with a possible topic being, "What do you miss most about home?"). Others might deal with academics, sexuality and spirituality. Also, forums could be moderated by a few upperclassmen interested in offering limited but helpful advice. This advice could include information about resources freshmen can use and deans to whom they can talk. Why not make digital the kind of graffiti that we see in the bathroom stalls at the Rock and the Gate. Anything would be better than the current culture of silence and loneliness.
Beyond the personal nature of freshmen problems, we should take seriously their complaints about Brown. Their fresh eyes can see things to which our own have become so accustomed, as we are so blinded by our love and affection for our home away from home.
Nida Abdulla '11.5 is an English concentrator from New Jersey. She can be contacted at nida_abdulla-at-brown.edu
