It was my first week of college, and my roommate and I had skipped the overcrowded lines of the Brown Runs Costco Trip for something which seemed a little more achievable: taking the bus two stops down to the Walmart in North Providence. Yet, as we embarked on our journey, we watched in horror as our blue dot on Google Maps sailed in the wrong direction. When the bus stopped twenty minutes later, we were across from a dimly-lit casino in Lincoln, Rhode Island.
After our retreat back to campus, I swore I would never follow my roommate onto a bus again, even though Brown foots the cost for student fares. Yet, in the three weeks since that fateful trip, the two of us have successfully traveled to a taco place so good it made us tear up, a bookstore hosting jazz nights, two beautiful beaches and yes — Walmart. Navigating via Rhode Island Public Transport Authority buses and Google Maps has become second nature. These adventures taught me that while our academic pursuits are important, it takes off-campus experience to realize the significance of our studies.
The average Brown freshman’s schedule is relatively stable: Have a professor lecture to you, do the homework they assigned to you, visit the dining hall to eat food someone else cooked for you and take a nighttime shower in a bathroom someone else cleans for you. It’s easy to think that college life is no more than the sum of these predictable patterns. But we can’t forget that college is also a time to get acquainted with the independence of adulthood. We can inject agency and independence into our schedules by planning a trip for our friends and taking responsibility for how it unfolds. If you get a little sidetracked from your destination, that’s fine: Try again tomorrow! These trips, if undertaken safely, can be fruitful even in their redirection. If nothing else, you’ll overcome your fear of getting lost, like I did that evening in Lincoln.
As you grow into an explorer of R.I., why not take it a step further and become an observant, engaged citizen? Growing up, I didn’t think too hard about the politics unfolding in Trenton, 10 minutes down the road from my New Jersey high school. When you have enough privilege to enjoy a buffer from year-to-year changes in policies, you lose interest in local elections. Even if you aren’t registered to vote as a R.I. resident, as a Brown student, you are still a member of its community. Without venturing off College Hill, you’ll never be inspired to exercise your voice and become an active contributor to your home.
Traveling on the RIPTA has brought recent headlines to life. We learned that the service cuts to be implemented on Sept. 27 will make it harder for those relying on public transit to make it to work on time. My roommate and I take the RIPTA to break out of our college routines, but for those whose routine depends on reliable transit, the estimated $5 million saved from the cuts will seriously affect their lives. You might hear these facts as you recline in the back row of your lecture hall, but they only stick in your memory when you hear it directly from someone impacted.
I hope that deep exploration and observation of our surroundings will complement our academic program and infuse it with meaning. We crave internships and “real-world” job experience, but the real world is out there to experience, even when you’re not getting paid to wander around it. To the hundreds of freshmen who shopped for international and public affairs and political science classes with me: The world is yours to observe, research and write about. While you’re sitting in ECON 0110: “Principles of Economics,” consider whether your next project could be solving the RIPTA’s budget problem.
Arya Vishwakarma ’29 can be reached at arya_vishwakarma@brown.edu. Please send responses to this column to letters@browndailyherald.com and op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com
