Concentration Reflections

Some quick blurbs I had my friends write. I hope this helps inform your concentration exploration!

Prompt: What concentration are you declaring, what did you initially plan on doing, why are you declaring said concentration, and what have you done to explore it?


Jelynn - Biochemistry

Declaring Biochemistry
Entered as Biochemistry (but underwent an apma-bio -> bio -> biochem journey)

Why: i like bio (kinda) and i like chem (kinda) therefore … also because at the time i took orgo, i liked it so much that i preemptively planned on taking orgo 3 and thought that it’d make the most sense to link it with biochem rather than gen bio

Exploration: followed my interests! i thought i liked math and bio but realized (early) that college math is very hard for me so i quit that quickly. and then i realized that i’m not particularly strong at pure bio classes but really enjoyed chem, so basically just added the chemistry part because i still think the bio electives are cool :D

Email Jelynn.

Angelina - GNSS & Public Health

Declaring GNSS and Public Health
Entered as GNSS and Slavic Studies

Why: i’m scared of failing in learning languages in a class. public health also i only heard of it here and it seemed to be a very good fit for my interests. i want to do stuff with a social look at things

Imran - Public Health & Economics

Declaring Public Health and Economics
Entered as Biology

Why: I was always noncommittal with Biology, it just seemed like something I might enjoy. I never took an Econ class in high school so I took ECON 0110 in my first semester, really enjoyed it, and have decided to keep running with it. I like public health because it plays well with economics. Healthcare in the US helped me connect those dots because it showed me how economics and public health are quite interconnected.

Email Imran.

Ben - Mathematics and Computer Science

Declaring Math-CS, maybe secondary in EAS or COGS
Entered as APMA and Philosophy, then CS-Econ

Why: I really like math and logic, and using my knowledge from those fields to build systems in cs is very fulfilling.

Madhu - Biology & Public Health

Declaring Biology and Public Health
Entered as Public Health and Classics

Why: I took classes in Public Health at the local community college during high school, and I enjoyed them so wanted to continue studying Public Health at Brown. I chose Public Health since there are a wide variety of areas inside of the field, and having a Public Health background will be useful to me when I go into healthcare.

Exploration: Taking a variety of different courses in the Public Health department at Brown, such as Pathology to Power and Healthcare in the US.

Email Madhu.