During the first few weeks at Brown, friendship feels like magic. You’re bonding over dorm room decor, midnight Josiah’s runs and shared confusion about Canvas. You say yes to every invitation, because why not? Every connection feels new and open. The stakes are low and the warmth feels real. Walk through campus and you’ll find friendships blooming on dorm staircases, in late-night dining halls and through the quiet moments of homesickness. But after orientation, things start to feel different — the tangible curiosity dissipates, and in its place, a transactional social culture emerges, one that jeopardizes the prospect of building valuable, authentic friendships at Brown.
This cultural shift is clear the moment orientation ends and classes begin. The excitement and spontaneity that fills those first few days on campus gives way to a new rhythm. The friendships that once formed effortlessly start to feel more calculated, and casual conversations quickly turn into coffee chats. As club applications, research positions and leadership opportunities start filling up, it feels like there is less room for meeting someone simply because they are interesting or fun to be around. The more people start to think about their next steps — whether in terms of classes, clubs or internships — the less spontaneous the connections feel. Slowly, what once felt like genuine, effortless friendship starts to feel more transactional.
At Brown, where everyone is actively building something — whether it’s an app, an activist movement or a perfect LinkedIn profile — the temptation to treat people as stepping stones can be subtle but powerful. The value of connections is quickly learned. A friend with answers to a problem set, a group chat that grants entry to parties or a mentor who can vouch for you in front of a professor can all be useful things to have in your back pocket. In a place so driven by initiative and ambition, relationships can transform into leverage.
To be clear, networking isn’t inherently bad. It’s often necessary. But when relationships are approached from a transactional perspective, authenticity erodes. Conversations become careful and vulnerability feels risky. The pressure to be seen as competent, composed and connected leaves little room for the messier, slower process of genuine friendship. It’s not malicious. It’s only what happens when the talk of impact, leadership and “making the most of Brown” takes over.
But real friendship doesn’t fit neatly into a Google Calendar. Thinking back to the first weeks at Brown, orientation felt like a social free-for-all. No one knew who was pre-med, who had a startup or who would end up on an executive board. Conversations just happened over meals, during icebreakers and at 3 a.m. outside Grad Center. It didn’t matter who was “useful.” Everyone was interesting and new.
That mindset — genuine curiosity, openness to difference and a willingness to connect without agenda — is exactly what gets lost while moving deeper into Brown. People stop engaging with others for who they are and start calculating what their peers can offer.
It’s easy to stay within the familiar routines that have been built. It’s safe. It’s efficient. But for deeper, more authentic friendships to form, a conscious shift in how we approach friendship is needed. It starts with small, intentional choices: talking to someone new, showing up without an agenda, reaching out without a reason. It means resisting the pressure to treat relationships like transactions. We already know how to do this: We did it during orientation. The challenge is to bring that same openness into every year that follows because, in the end, the most worthwhile friendships at Brown won’t be the ones that advance your resume. They'll be the ones that remind you of who you are outside of it.
Dua Azhar ’29 can be reached at dua_azhar@brown.edu. Please send responses to this column to letters@browndailyherald.com and other opinions to opinions@browndailyherald.com.
