I had a weird time at ADOCH. I spent most of it getting lost and making excruciating small talk with all the other overly excited pre-frosh (just for the record, I also felt that the term “pre-frosh” was remarkably pejorative).
I stuck with a couple other prospective students, and together we shuffled around campus, clutching our little Brown folders that contained a map, a schedule, and the contact info of our hosts. We ran into about a thousand a cappella concerts during the three days of ADOCH. Seriously, we couldn’t go anywhere without having our path blocked by a horde of jauntily-dressed students swaying, singing, and snapping like their lives depended on it.
Yeah, it was kinda bizarre. But for all the pre-frosh who felt weirdly about ADOCH, take heart. Being a student at Brown is a lot better than being a pre-frosh.
You might get lost sometimes at the beginning of freshman year, and for the first couple weeks of school conversations with other first years can feel repetitive — “Where are you from? What do you plan to study? Where are you living?”
But it gets better. And it starts to feel normal as you meet and learn about other people, get into the rhythm of your classes, and figure out the nuances of the dining room schedules (Pro tip: Sweet potato fries are in the Ratty on Wednesday).