As students finish pre-registration for Spring 2011, once again some popular liberal arts classes, such as VISA 0100: "Studio Foundation," are quickly filling up. As the popularity of these courses shows Brown students' general enthusiasm for a liberal education, it might be exciting for the entire community to know that many liberal arts classes are attracting more students from groups previously stereotyped as science concentrators.
For instance, the number of Chinese international students to jump out of their circle of stereotypical concentrations has been increasing in recent years. Before then, most of the courses they took were in the departments of applied mathematics, computer science, economics, mathematics, physics or some combination of the five. Among the 2013 and 2014 graduating classes, however, more students from Chinese high schools are taking courses and planning to concentrate in areas including comparative literature, psychology, history and modern culture and media. Following the liberal education ideal, a friend of mine tried out for a play despite her heavy commitments in an investment-related student group and wearisome search for a summer banking internship.
This is certainly good news for a school that endorses a liberal education for the very purpose of getting everyone to explore the diversity of academia as well as its depth. At Brown, we try to let all students explore and experience classes that interest them, challenge them or inspire them, whether as whole disciplines or particular perspectives within disciplines, that they might hardly venture into otherwise.
Before I transferred to Brown, I spent two years at Northwestern University as a hard-core journalism major at the Medill School of Journalism. At Northwestern, one of those universities where the undergraduates are divided by academic departments upon their admission, the encouragement for a liberal arts education speaks louder on the school's website than in reality.
Classes at some schools are nearly impossible to get into for the students outside that school, but one can always "transfer from one school to another," as they say there. But in order to do that, a student will have to fill out forms and obtain signatures from an important and hardly available dean, yet still may not be guaranteed a space unless he or she takes and excels at some of the basic courses required by the new school. When such processes exist at any college, students usually get the message, despite what the administration claims.
Many obstacles lie between students and the liberal education ideal. For those students from a pre-college education with a fixed curriculum that allows for no course selection freedom, they might not stand on the same ground as others in understanding the benefits of a liberal arts education. The lack of exposure itself stands as a potential barricade for some students.
And that is why we appreciate that Brown has preserved the Open Curriculum concept, so that the University eliminates as much red tape on its own part as possible. As a result of this and many other factors, a liberality-endorsing culture exists to encourage pro-liberal education trends like the one happening to the Chinese student population.
I once talked to Associate Professor of Applied Mathematics Govind Menon about Brown versus other colleges. He said each year he sees quite a few students deeply dedicated to science or economics. They knew what they wanted to do before they came to Brown, and they take only those classes that fulfill those concentrations. Often, they find schools like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology or the University of Chicago might get them closer to what they want to do than Brown will. In this case, Brown might not be the best fit for them, as they are not making use of any of the liberal part of Brown's curriculum.
But that is particularly why Brown must endorse liberal arts ideals and welcome everyone to them. Not everyone appreciated those ideals when they came, but the community at Brown believes that everyone should experience liberal education and can come to benefit from it.
There has hardly been a college that gives greater freedom in building one's own education than Brown. We respect the existing differences in the demographics of the candidates for some concentrations. At the same time, we encourage accessibility for all, in an effort to get a well-balanced composition of students across concentrations, as well as each individual student's balance in the education.
Does cultural segregation across concentrations exist? It might, and might continue to, despite current trends and the community's push to lessen the boundaries between and among concentrations. But it is certainly a breakthrough for Brown's liberal education campaign that more Chinese students are trying to throw aside some habitual thinking and instead go for what they really find passion in, like trying out for a play or concentrating in comparative literature. It does not matter that some may try and fail. The point is that our community as a whole keeps encouraging exploration, so that more and more students coming to Brown from any part of the world will explore those fields that they might not even think of, nor have the opportunity to venture into elsewhere.
Sissi Sun '12 is a theater and mathematical economics concentrator from Chicago. She can be reached at siqi_sun (at) brown.edu.
