A Day In the Life of a New Browning Student

Browning has a lot of cool things, like clubs and breaks, but it may not be the perfect fit for many new students like me. In my experience so far, I have had a couple of issues with the organization, the schedules, and the overall school building, in which I think they can consider or even improve these aspects.

First of all, some of the locations of the rooms make no sense. Room 406 is a floor above 416, since logically, you would want the greater numbers to go above and the fewer numbers to go under. In this case, room 416 should be above room 406, room 314 should be above 304, and so on, according to logic. These inconsistencies in the numbers might result in confusion on where to go, especially if you are walking into the building for the first or second time.

Secondly, the schedules are constantly changing and you can never be truly up to date if you have a paper schedule, since they cannot update themselves, and you have to print a new one every time something changes. For example, in the first few weeks of school, clubs did not really exist and it took me a while to realize that I had to use the paper on the wall on the 4th floor to know where to go. This contributed to some confusion and I had to clarify with Ms. Ma and some teachers to get to wherever I needed to go during clubs.

Thirdly, why does there have to be so many flights of stairs? When I go down to lunch or snack, I often have a class high up on the 4th or 5th floor, and have to tirelessly travel up several flights of stairs, and by the time I get up there, my legs are already sore and aching. I have noticed a lot of other people showing signs of tiredness when going up the stairs, being droopy and exhausted. Some teachers have said it helps in sports. Since I also have a heavy backpack and often other things to carry, going up and down the stairs every day is not easy.

In summary, Browning is a great school with great faculty and activities, except their organization and sudden changes cause lots of confusion for the newer students and will make the first weeks hard.