Women & Leadership, Welcome to Class!

Sharpe Refectory "The Ratty" straight ahead.

I was sleeping until my great loud alarm woke me up at 7:15 AM, I touched the snooze icon on my phone and it was just about 5 minutes after that I remembered that today was the first day of class. My energy immediately boosted quickly as I flew out of bed, I opened my eyes, and started changing into my clothes. Then I walked across to the bathroom and started washing my face, brushing my teeth, and doing my make up. I mean I had to make myself look presentable at least.

My entire floor was invited to eat as a group in the Ratty this morning in yesterday's floor meeting at 8 AM which would give us plenty of time to eat and head over to class. I woke up pretty early and decided to head over to the Ratty to join them. Just as I was walking out my room I spotted Komal just waking up and getting ready so we agreed on meeting each other at the dining hall. I sat next to Kunar, and Fio this morning as we discussed the feeling of nervousness and excitement we felt for our class. Besides that I must mention that breakfast was quite tasty at the Ratty today; I had scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browns, and a pancake with maple syrup.

Then 8:40 AM and my floor met outside the Ratty with some students that were staying at Buxton, both of our RA's came out and decided to split us up by class. The girls from the Women and Leadership class were called to follow our TA, her name is Christine Lim and she is from San Diego, California. We all collectively walked to class which is located on the second floor of the Center for Information Technology building in room 227. This building is next to the Sciences Library also known to be the "ugliest building on the whole Brown campus. We went inside and walked upstairs to 227, this was it.

There were many girls and right when we entered the classroom we all sat in random seats. I sat in the farthest left of the class and there was an empty seat on my left. to the farthest right was Bailey and Lynda. Next to me on my right was a girl named Jennifer from San Francisco which means she is very local to where we live and she greeted me with a huge smile on her face which totally made my day. As everyone settled Camila sat right next to me right before the clock pointed at 9 AM. Then class started.

View from upstairs.

Our class is located on the second floor of
 the CIT building.

Tina Park our instructor and our Teacher Aid, Camile Lim introduced themselves to the entire class and gave us there contact information in where we could reach them on at any time if we have any questions or if there's a problem. Our class started like any typical high school class on the first day of school. A syllabus was then handed out to us with valuable information over our assignments that will be given throughout this two week course.

In class we also had to introduce ourselves by saying our name, hometown, answering a question on the board, and naming our guilty pleasure. I said my name, my hometown, answered why I signed up to be in the class, and my guilty pleasure was Grey's Anatomy and the Ferrero Rocher chocolates.

We also performed a name game activity in the beginning to learn each other's names. I think it is like a Brown's thing to play and do all these activities in which we can all bond and get to know each other. Evidently it tends to work very great when it comes to remembering a bunch of names. Following to our little warm up we all had the chance to answer a few questions on an index card, and shortly after class started.

We started off by having a pair share conversation with whom ever was sitting right next to us and answered a few more questions of why we chose the class and what we expected to get out of this experience.

Most of our class was an oral lecture most of the time also filled with activities in which we participated in to learn.

Before lunch we paired up with someone other than the person we were sitting next to, my partner was Bailey for the gallery walk activity and we went around the room where there were a bunch of pictures posted on walls and we had to write our thoughts on a sticky note. One thing that was highly interesting about this activity was how the pictures really represented more than just the women being in pictures, but in general the perspective gathered in how women are really seen as or how people portray them in today's society.

A very good picture that sent a very strong message was an image of a woman's thigh that had lines across the length of their leg and each line had a negative label of what they're considered to be known as for the length of clothing they wear. The general message of the labels meant that women always fall into some type of negative category and they are never in between. It had a lot to do with today's sexual exploitation of women that we see being used everyday in society.

After our activity the first half of the class had already gone by and it was time for lunch at 11 AM. This time we decided to try the Verney Wooley the "V-Dub" dining hall  which is all down Thayer Street and it is just down the street from our classroom building. Lauren, a girl from Minnesota from Olney's second floor and Sara, Aimee's roommate from Colombia had told us that the lunch there was better than the "Ratty" so I had to go try it myself. Then Lynda, Bailey, Camila, Komal, and Aimee also came along as a group to try lunch there.


The V-Dub is actually smaller, more organized, and honestly better than the Ratty. They serve pretty much the same food as the Ratty but it tastes slightly better in my opinion.

Me, Komal, Lynda, Bailey, Lauren, Camila, and Sara.

Nicole Bravo RD of Buxton and Olney.

After eating we headed back to class at 1 PM and we played a game that took up the time until the end of class at 3 PM. Then thirty minutes after we had to meet at Solomon Hall in the main green for Leader Institute Director Presentation to meet and overview the skills we will be working and learning these two weeks.

After the hour long presentation the girls and I strolled back to our dorms and started our blogs but we also reviewed the assignments we will be needing to complete tonight and the rest of the week. I actually learned to use the Canvas website which is something students use at Brown to turn in their assignments. At 6 PM we went to get dinner at the Ratty and today's menu had very delicious vegan food! It was my first time trying it and it was good meal for the night and of course I could not miss my dessert.



After dinner we all wanted to explore a new place to go lounge in so we went to the Student Center in the main green and I have to say it has very comfy couched to sit in and you can enjoy the view of the main green as well. We then received a few emails for our assignment due tomorrow and it ended up being more than what we had expected so we went down to Starbucks to buy a caffeine drink that can help keep us up at night to complete our work. Now we are in Lauren's dorm finishing our homework