Know what you're talking about before you run your mouth.

Can I just say something?

This has happened way too many times, starting the day that I committed to going to Brown.  I get that we have the hippie reputation of the Ivies, a hippie reputation in general, and we do quite a bit to encourage that.  We generally like our progressive rep, our lack of a core curriculum, our focus on the undergrad part of the school, etc.  But this still really, really bugs me.

WE STILL DO WORK.

We have grades, people, okay?  Yeah, you can take every single class pass/fail, but if you do that grad schools will laugh at you.  You can find "easy" majors, but then a lack of connections will screw you, hugely, in the real world.  You can just not attend classes, but you'll fail them.  You can drop a class the day before the final, but that generally still means you have to make it up, AND you used up a ton of time studying for it.  We don't have pluses or minuses, but you can still get a C.  When you fail, the class doesn't show up, but you'll probs still have to retake it and you won't get credit for it and that sucks. 

Seriously, you can make your life really easy at Brown, but many (most?) of the students there choose to work their butts off.  I can say from experience that nearly all the science classes I took were not "cut up this frog lol," and they had labs that were basically the length of all the Land Before Time movies back-to-back.  My poor engineering friends would disappear for weeks at a time and God knows where they went.  Math people?  God bless with those problem sets that you seemed to have due every 12 hours.  And for those who wrote papers: no, those aren't exams, but they take a TON of time if you care about them.  And once again, most people care, wrote well, and tried to say something more original than "Huck Finn is pretty racist if you think about it.  AMIRITE?" 

If you weren't in class, you were probably devoting your time to about 8 extra-curriculars at once, or only one that took over your life.  People were raising money, tutoring, inviting speakers, writing for newspapers, playing music, running organizations.  Fine, some were left-wing, progressive, weird, whatever... but they STILL TAKE EFFORT TO RUN.  If your activity was the notorious "underwater basket weaving" of lore, you would still need to take scuba classes, pass the exam, collect organic, local, fair-trade, basket-making supplies, petition for a budget, recruit members, and probably sell your baskets and donate the money to a homeless shelter.  This weird shit takes TIME, MONEY, AND EFFORT.

While most people I know realize that I, personally, would not have spent four years barefoot in a swirly skirt, ribbon-dancing across the Main Green with flowers in my hair, many people seem to think that most Brown students fall into two camps: high for four straight years, and Emma Watson.  This is a lie.  Brown regularly kicked my butt and handed it to me, and if you think this is easy, show up and I'll throw you in an orgo lab, make you write a history paper, and tutor 80 underprivileged fourth-graders AT ONCE.  Good luck. 

If that doesn't sound super fun, shut your mouth.  You know nothing.