Intro hey everyone it's Cil welcome back to my YouTube channel it's so weird like sitting here getting ready to make a video where I talk about my entire Brown experience when I feel like I just got on this channel telling you guys that I got in the four years have just like flown by and I just like can't believe I'm at the other end of it so as you all know I had an amazing experience of brown I had ups and downs obviously but I absolutely loved it there so now I'm trying to share this video from the perspective of postgrad even though I haven't really like internalized that I'm a postgrad yet like I keep referring to myself as a current student when I'm totally not so hopefully this will be like really helpful for you guys as the class of 2029 starts apply a college I feel so old that is absolutely crazy and like obviously when I say I had a great experience I'm not trying to tell you that my entire four years is all like sunshine and Roses like any other college student especially like as someone who's pread I definitely had my ups and downs like many other students I struggled with moments where I had anxiety depression you name it I had to put myself through that and also just like find resources and get help so that I could come out of it and like be a better student in person but anyways Notable Narratives before we get into the video I had to tell you guys about notable narratives just because so many of you guys are prepping to apply to college so notable narratives is a nonprofit I started in 20120 basically at the same time as I started this channel I recognized especially for me as an fgi student how difficult it was Appliance college and so me and my friend Brandon actually created this organization to help first gen low-income students apply to college for free so by signing up for notable narratives if you're a first generation low-income student you're eligible and then you'll get matched to an fgli mentor to help you through the entire college application process so as for every year we start in August so I'm going to put the link to sign up or like display some interest in the comments below and then we'll reach out to you when the form is open we're hoping to help hundreds of students this year and then I do have to clarify unfortunately this is our second year where we have to be domestic only just because of some funding concerns and certain things that we have with our platforms where it's only available to you us students and that's really really upsetting especially because the first three years we're really helping International students and it was just like such a global effort but unfortunately we do have to restrict it and I'm really sorry about that yeah please share that with your friends if you know any other first generation Lancome students that could benefit from it we're really just trying to be able to help as many students as possible get access to higher education and apply to college get those scholarships and like basically get all that knowledge that you might have not had going into this process but anyways Location let's get into the video okay so the first thing we're going to get into is location mainly because my opinion on that kind of just like shifted over my four years so coming from Ohio going to Providence was like the most exciting thing ever I still think Providence is such a cute City there's so much going on there there's always like little art fairs or like water fire downtown where they like literally light the water on fire and everyone comes to watch it and stuff so one thing is obviously the food scene is amazing I feel like there were so many different like Cuisines all like tucked into this small little city so that was super awesome even though I'm not entirely an adventurous eater but like especially when I got off mail plan my Junior and Senior year I was like always eating out or like buying Trader Joe's frozen food just as someone who can't cook so I think having that variety was like super super cool but I think for me like looking back there honestly like wasn't that not much to actually do in Providence like there were super cool things in Rhode Island like going to Newport seeing the beaches and stuff like that there and then as a lot of people said like going to Boston or going to New York was super convenient however when I actually think about Providence itself Beyond like walking around like going to the local shops after you do that there really isn't much more there however I think this does change if you have a car and you're able to like drive to different locations and like maybe like hike explore different parts of Rhode Island just cuz there's a lot like in Rhode Island in general super small state takes like an hour to get anywhere in the state but if you don't have a car I do think you're heavily restricted in what you can do but on the other hand Ubers are super cheap so once in a while like I would get Ubers and like go somewhere else and like see different restaurants that sort of thing but for the most part you are kind of restricted to the Providence region so that being said I think it might be difficult for someone that's like originally from like a super bustling City like New York City to like come to Providence and not be a little bit disappointed I think a lot of my friends from big cities resonated with that now with all that being said Weather honestly the weather was super annoying and something about Rhode Island that I think you don't realize until you're a senior and like a lot of people like live off campus and stuff in these houses like I did in my previous Vlogs is that everything's super old so like the house that I lived in and many of the houses my friends lived in did not have air conditioning and that sucked at the beginning of the year and then later in the winter we ended up using so much heat which we had to pay for with our gas bill just because the insulation wasn't as good since it was a really old house so I guess that's like something small to keep in mind but also for my friends that were coming from like regions that were warmer it was a little difficult just because the Providence weather is not great during the winter it was gloomy up until like May which really sucks but also being from Ohio like that didn't totally bother me but it was annoying when I was like walking like 20 minutes to class since I lived a little far away off campus anyways moving on from the weather I want to PreProfessional Life talk about pre-professional life at Brown so I don't know as much about like pre- Dental pre-law prepa I don't think there was as much support for those programs at Brown they didn't really have like their own dedicated office like pre-ww just had the president's husband I kind of advise students and like there were some clubs that sort of thing but pred was a huge community and I was part of it so I know a lot about it and genuinely I think attending Brown was like the best decision I could have ever made as a pred especially as a pred with so many different interests like I wanted to take classes in like history anthropology sociology and like obviously all the classic science classes but the open curriculum and the fact that we weren't compared against each other just made being a Premed so much easier than it could have been other schools and also there were just so many opportunities for research and clinical opportunities with the hospital being like right next to us and transportation being like super reliable for you to go volunteer and that sort of thing being a preed you were able to really check off the boxes you needed to while also being able to like pursue passion projects in Providence just because there were so many options like for such a small school I genuinely thought that there was a lot of support for preit advising and if you're a prit I would definitely recommend like looking into Brown especially because you kind of underestimate like how important it is to go to like a happy supportive school when you're struggling as Prat taking these tough courses like orgo and bio having that pure support and also just the support of like academic tutoring and things that are normal at Brown like like half the students I knew like would go to academic tutoring that sort of thing like that seriously helped and it really motivated me and I think it's one of the reasons that I'm like still prad however Clubs Activities with that all being said I honestly don't think I took advantage of the club and activity environment like I should have but also it just like really hard as a prad like locking in and then also finding time to like join these fun clubs and activities cuz there were so many cool things like at one point I really wanted to try like the aerial acrobatics Club things like that I joined ice skating for a little bit of time which was like super fun but also I feel like at Brown it was really hard to get involved in these clubs if you didn't do it at the beginning of the fall semester where we had like our giant clubs and activities Fair like obviously you can join clubs and activities like later in the school year and like in the spring semester we have a smaller virtual activities fair but like people don't really attend that one as much and also I just felt like it was really hard to like break into that space if you hadn't signed up from the beginning like put your name down so honestly no matter what school you go to like I'd rather over sign up and then kind of sort out what I actually want to be involved in just so I like demonstrated interest from the beginning then to try to sign up later in the year just cuz I did encounter some difficulties with that moving on to Social Life social life I've said it before but I'll say it again Brown does not really have school spirit so football games daries that sort of thing is really important to you I don't think this would be the school for you like I'd say that we had maybe like two daries the entire school year and like everyone only went to like one football game anyways which was the Harvard Brown game like don't get me wrong the game was super super fun but people never really went to sporting events or like really celebrated that and honestly like I kind of wish they did more but it's just something that I knew I wasn't going to really get out of my brown experience but honestly when things were hosted they were super fun but I will say my grade was a little bit clicky and I don't know if that's because my grade was like the co class so we were the ones that had the class group me with everyone in it and people were like kind of talking to each other online and like forming these groups or pods or whatever before we got to campus and we were kind of restricted to like having a small group just because of like social distancing and stuff but I did feel like everyone knew everyone but after after like sophomore year it was really hard to break into friend groups everyone just kind of had their designated circles and I felt like you could meet people like outside of those circles and classes and different things but it seemed like those circles didn't really change and that's something that I don't know if I loved but also some of this stuff does come with having a small campus like I honestly feel like I was always one degree or connection away from anyone else now complete 180 I did want to talk about mental health for a Mental Health second I kind of referenced this early on in the video when I did tell you guys that there were moments where I was not doing well like I feel like honestly like the mental health support of a school cannot be overlooked just because like if I had stayed in those really rough moments it's honestly super hard to climb out and like genuinely I don't think the counseling at Brown is what did it for me the counseling was not that helpful like you were limited by appointments it was hard to get an appointment wasn't a huge fan two things they did at Brown for me mental healthwise that I think were super helpful number one Dean's notes were super accessible meaning that you could just like talk to Dean about what you were going through and they would offer a note that would be sent to your professors almost every single single time I'd get an extension or I'd be able to like postpone a test or an exam or just something to a different date until I was able to like mentally or physically even if you have a physical illness handle it another thing I was able to get accommodations so for me I have like really really bad test anxiety so I was able to get like one in a half time and like be able to take my exam in a separate place like when I did have exams and that meant the world to me and made things so much easier and I was actually able to like Focus instead of just like counting down the time and like getting really in my head but per Regrets usual I'm rambling so let's get into some of my regrets number one I said this earlier I really wish I like inv involved myself in more activities like as a pred I was super hyper focused on my pred things but genuinely I wish I join like clubs and activities that were totally outside my comfort zone cuz I can tell you now as a postgrad it is so much harder to be able to pursue random hobbies and like meet people through that kind of stuff like don't get me wrong I always went to events I supported my friends who are in these kinds of clubs and activities but like now as a postgrad I'm like oh I just wish I would have like tried out aerial acrobatics or something when they had open workshops number two I wish I talked more to Upper classman while I was a freshman I had so many like freshman sophomores like reach out to me asking for advice on like career clubs like academics that sort of thing when I was upper classman and looking back I really wish I did that because like I'm giving them advice and like insights that are so helpful and I feel like I did talk to some upper classmen but these people like often DM me out of nowhere like I didn't even know them and we would just meet and I wish I did that like I wish I just like shot my shot and along those lines number three I wish I cared less about what people think of me like I was really in my head I had a lot of anxiety whenever I was like doing anything I was just like worried that people were judging me and now as a postgrad I'm realizing that I really don't have to see a lot of these people unless I want to you really have to go out of your way to maintain connections after graduating college so for many people that I was like afraid to see or afraid would judge me or something like that didn't really matter postgrad and I wish I didn't let it affect me so much and like the things I did while I was an undergrad also I keep mentioning postgrad but I haven't actually like clarified what I'm doing for this like one Gap year so right now I'm playing medical school like literally as we speak I literally just submitted an application like 2 hours ago I've just been writing like secondaries which are the supplemental essays like basically all week and that's what my month is going to look like but anyways for my Gap year I'm working as a scribe in medical Dermatology so that's like enco Dermatology like it's more complex and regular General Derm and I'm also working as a research assistant so pursuing my own project so as you can My Own Project see I'm in my Chicago Apartment I'm in the bedroom right now but it's like super bare like these are just some random decorations I got from like my old dorm people around me all over the place anyways Kodak sent me this mini shot 3 era camera which I think acts similar to another like instant camera just takes pictures and I was thinking of using it to like decorate the walls right there like getting some pictures along the wall so I'm going to grab my roommate and I'm going to see what we can do with this just to make this living space a little more friendly and exciting these are carpes sweet so I got the camera out I'm going to try it take a little selfie I can like kind of see myself so hopefully this goes well oh it takes the photo and then I print it okay this is so cool it's just like printing it out that is so sick this is the first photo we actually printed with the camera so yeah that's the entire video I really hope that this helps you guys have more insight into what brown is like and genuinely I would not trade those four years for anything like I seriously had the best experience and I can answer more like specific questions in the comments just comment down below email me DM me send me multiple emails or DMS cuz like my emails get like lost cuz I have so many that sort of thing and once again thank you for supporting my channel this has been so awesome and I can't wait to just like keep making videos about what it's like honestly like postgrad and genuinely throughout medical school as I go through this entire process and hopefully get into one anyways that's all see you guys later