At many schools, earning an undergraduate degree can be a relatively straightforward process. You declare a major, stick to it, and graduate. For Brown students, that’s not always good enough. A single concentration just can’t contain their exuberant curiosity and their focused drive to improve the world. If, for example, like Jamelle Watson-Daniels, you have a passion for physics but wonder why there are no other black women working in the physics department, it’s not enough to take note and move on. No, instead you double concentrate in Africana Studies to try to understand the history behind the circumstances in which you find yourself and you change them. Not every Brown student faces such a dramatic conflict, but many of them find their time at Brown transforming them in ways they never anticipated. Here are stories of eight seniors who will graduate this spring: where they come from, where they are going, and how they found their way.
JAMELLE WATSON-DANIELS
A physics concentrator who wanted to know why so few women of color study the hard sciences.
JACQUELINE RICE
A comp lit concentrator who’s as comfortable with Virgil as with contemporary Caribbean poetry.
JOE SHARKEY
A brain injury forced him to give up basketball. It also made him discover what his real dream might be.
CHRISTINA MATA
While spending a year studying in Italy, she learned how to confront her fears.
NICO ENRIQUEZ & MAX EASTON
These entrepreneurs juggled school and business to develop Farmer Willie’s Alcoholic Ginger Beer.
NIYOLPAQUI MORAZA-KEESWOOD
Brown was where he could finally take pride in his identity.
SOPHIE PURDOM
The best way to combat climate change is by joining business, not opposing it.
