Undergraduate Orientation

Hi! I’m Thomas, a rising senior studying English and Creative Writing. I’m from Charleston, West Virginia, a city of 48,000 people, and I never considered myself as rural before coming to Brown. But everything’s relative, and at Brown, so many students hail from so many cities that I’ve heard people unironically call Providence “small” or “rural.” It’s easy to think how neatly you “fit” into the rural or not-rural categories, but I think this track is an amazing place to realize that it’s the experiences, and not the numbers, that define “rurality” here at Brown. So if you connect with the term rural, I think this track could be great for you. In my time at Brown, I have developed a greater understanding and pride in where I’m from, and that’s something we should all feel.