One of the amazing characteristics that distinguishes Brown from other universities in the United States is its diverse student body. Everywhere you look, there's bound to be another student from some place in the world you've always dreamt of visiting or from a country of which you've never even heard. I don't know where else I would've met someone from Thailand or Romania if it weren't for the large variety of students at Brown.
Diversity provides many benefits for our school. It allows students to share their cultures and unique traditions with others. It introduces so many different perspectives on life and the world around us, and it makes Brown a much more interesting school compared to others. I'm sure a large portion of high school students that apply to Brown have in mind the heterogeneity of the school when they do so. I know I did. However, I didn't quite realize just how diverse this place is until one of the orientation assemblies during my freshman year. I remember sitting in a massive room and being surprised at the huge number of people in there, only to later discover that several of my fellow students were from many different states and countries.
Everywhere I go, I see advertisements promoting various international clubs and announcing events hosted by said clubs. These events involve activities such as learning how to prepare regional food dishes, watching foreign movies or exploring new and interesting cultures. The international community here is vast, and it's so easy to get involved and become a part of it, even if you're not from another country.
There are many clubs at Brown that are meant to bring people of similar races but different backgrounds together, such as the South Asian Students Association or the Brown Taiwan Society. These groups are beneficial in that they allow people to meet each other and form connections that never would have been made otherwise. However, some might argue that all these organizations aren't necessarily as helpful as they're made out to be.
As one student pointed out at a Third World Transition Program discussion during orientation last year, if the University wants people from all backgrounds to be assimilated into the school easily, what's the point of even having a program that distinguishes such students? Wouldn't it make more sense to just let them try college out on their own and see where it takes them? Well, I feel that the student had a valid point when he noted the somewhat backwardness of the concept of a transition program specially designed for third-world students, but I also believe that the fact that Brown has this program says a lot about its dedication to its international student body; it wants to make students' transitions into college and America as easy as possible by offering support to whomever asks for it.
While having ethnic student associations is useful for promoting strong ethnic community cohesion within the student body, it doesn't make much sense to only bring together individuals who are of the same race. This only increases the relative homogeneity of the groups and lowers their within-group diversity. A different, but related, approach would be creating a club with the purpose of bringing people from completely different backgrounds together. Such a club could be considered borderline pointless because the university already does this in a broader sense simply by existing and having a huge variety of students. However, such a group could achieve a more specific goal of increasing student exposure to different cultures and viewpoints.
Diversity tends to be a little scarcer at many schools in the U.S. For example, the University of Alabama primarily consists of in-state students (roughly 92 percent). This is a ridiculously high amount of homogeneity even for a large state school. Brown, on the other hand, is much smaller in size yet much more diverse.
I'm glad that Brown is as diverse as it is because it facilitates learning about the world and the United States' contribution to it. As someone who doesn't usually pay much attention to international affairs and global politics, I can honestly say attending this school has opened my eyes to worldly affairs. In fact, it's possible to learn about foreign affairs just by reading The Herald.
Of course, Brown's exotic mixture of people from different cultures does not go unnoticed. We even have an International House to prove it. Its variety of students is one of many characteristics that contribute to its notoriety among other schools in the U.S. So, the next time you see a table slip advertising a foreign event or activity, take a moment to appreciate Brown. You probably won't experience this diversity anywhere else.
Deniz Ilgen '13 is a civil engineering concentrator from Los Gatos, California. She can be reached at deniz_ilgen@brown.edu.
