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Liliana Sykes: A tour of home

When I was applying to college, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t end up at Brown. It was too close to home, too close for comfort. But after getting in, it was too good to pass up. I convinced myself that it would feel miles away from home, a conviction I struggled with throughout my first semester. Brown still didn’t feel like my own, and I didn’t know how to change that.


But then I auditioned to be a tour guide. I’m pretty sure the only reason I did so was to convince my brain I liked Brown more than I actually did. I remember standing in front of my peers, rattling off my introduction and answers to the questions they asked. The audition wasn’t important; it’s the experiences that came after that essentially defined my college career.


The tour program doesn’t have a huge community feel. You show up to your tour slot once a week, give your tour, and that’s it. So making friends wasn’t really the point. The magic happens once you start giving tours. My first few tours were a disaster: I was nervous, I didn’t really know what I was saying, and I could tell the families were not feeling my vibe. But as I got more comfortable with myself, it started to happen. I fell in love with giving tours. And as I fell in love with giving tours, I fell in love with Brown.


People have this perception that all tour guides are the same. But that’s not true. They come in every shape and size. We’re not all the cheerleaders, jumping up and down screaming, “Go Bruno!” (though some of us are). What strings us together is an undeniable passion for Brown. For me that passion grew from the tour program, itself. Each time I walked backward across the Main Green or Wriston or Pembroke, I was forced to stop and really take in where I was. I was reminded every week why I ended up coming to Brown and why that choice was such an important one. Why it was the right choice.


As we go through the day-to-day schedules of being a student, we often forget why we love Brown. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by a paper or stuck in lab and neglect the magic that Brown emits. Being a tour guide constantly reminded me of this magic.


When I coordinated the program this year, my only goal was to make sure my guides remembered why they loved Brown.


Guides end their tours by speaking about why they chose Brown. By now I have my speech down, but every time I say it, I find myself believing it more and more. We all chose Brown for different reasons, but we stay Brunonians for the same reason — Brown is home.


Next year, Liliana Sykes will be continuing her quest to find the best cheeseburger in America, wherever that may be.

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