First Semester at Brandeis

As a first-year in the class of 2013, I’m experiencing something unique.  Because this first-year class is so large, we don’t fit the stereotypes normally associated with the “typical” Brandeis student. Still, I feel like I had a pretty typical first semester here.

In this past semester I realized exciting things about this campus. Brandeis professors want to help us and students want to get involved. There is an energy in our student population that I haven’t experience before, one that reveals itself in opinionated theological discussions over dinner in Usdan or the in myriad number of student-organized events going on all over campus at any given point in time. And it’s not just the students—this spirit permeates Brandeis faculty and staff in a very similar way.

After only one semester here I’ve come to a few conclusions.  First and most immediately recognizable is Brandeis is thankfully a lot more diverse (and a lot less “Jewish”) than the widely published statistics make it sound. Second, (despite my first realization) taking Hebrew at Brandeis is the equivalent of taking a math class at MIT. Third, this place somehow attracts an extremely unique, astonishingly dynamic bunch of people who come together and form the earnest, intellectual, activist-minded fabric of this university.

Author