Hi All!

My name is Lauren Brown, I’m a member of the class of 2012 from the lovely state of NJ. I’m majoring in Public Health Studies, minoring in Economics. I studied abroad in South Africa during the first semester of my Junior year, I’m involved in a sorority on campus, and in my spare time I like to run. I’ve really enjoyed my last two years at Hopkins, and I can’t believe I’m a senior now! Time flies here, and I’m so glad I decided to come to Hopkins.

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Why Hopkins?
When I visited schools four years ago, I was entirely undecided about my course of study. Hopkins really appealed to me because of its academic diversity. Hopkins has the best undergraduate public health program in the world, "Top Five" programs in Art History and Writing Seminars, and a number of world-renowned graduate schools. I felt that no matter what I eventually decided to study, Hopkins would be the right place to be.

Now that I'm a student here, I love the fact that Hopkins is so integrated into the city. Academic programs feed off of Baltimore. Students have access to academic and cultural resources ranging from internships downtown, research at the graduate schools, class trips to museums, and the city itself.

My Classes:
Since I’ve arrived at Hopkins, I’ve been able to take some really exciting classes in my quest to figure out what exactly I wanted to study.

Freshman Year:
First Semester:
History of Occidental Civilizations
Calculus I
Chemistry I
Chemistry Lab I
Introduction to Fiction and Poetry I
Second Semester:
American Bibles
Introduction to Fiction and Poetry II
Microeconomics
Chinese Cultural Revolution
English Literature Since 1945

Sophomore Year:
First Semester:
Biology I
Biology Lab I
Economics of Health
The Harlem Renaissance
Global Public Health Since 1945
The Environment and Your Health
Second Semester:
Fundamentals of Health Policy and Management
Biology II
Economics of Discrimination
Social Psychology

Junior Year:
First Semester (Abroad at the University of Cape Town):
Race, Class and Gender
History of Southern Africa in the 20th Century
Third World Politics
Medicine in the Making of Modern South Africa
Second Semester
American Literature 1865 to Today
Global Environmental Politics
Fundamentals of Epidemiology
Lectures on Public Health and Wellbeing in Baltimore
Clinical & Public Health Behavior Change
Health, Development & Inequality: A View From Latin America

Senior Year
First Semester
History of Africa Since 1880
Economic Development
Public Health Biostatistics
Introduction to Humanitarian Emergencies (Bloomberg School of Public Health)
Epidemiology and Public Health Impact of HIV-AIDS (Bloomberg)
Refugee Healthcare (Bloomberg)
International Political Science for Public Health Practitioners (Bloomberg)

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Extracurriculars
You really do have a lot more time to spare during college! So despite all those classes, I’ve been involved in a number of different activities on campus.

Freshman year I decided to join a sorority, Phi Mu. It was a great decision, enabling me to meet a wide range of girls, and providing a close-knit community within Hopkins. At the start of sophomore year I got the chance to lead a group of incoming freshmen through Orientation as a Peer Ambassador. During freshman and sophomore year, I also worked with the COACH program, a college-preparedness initiative that provides SAT tutoring and application assistance to inner city Baltimore students. I was paired up with juniors and seniors at the Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical High School, just down the road from Hopkins.

Most of my time on campus is spent in Mason Hall, the admissions building. I’m a part of the Student Admissions Advisory Board, where I blog, answer questions, work at Open Houses, and generally try to help out prospective students both online and on campus. I also give interviews and tours as an Admissions Representative and member of Blue Key Society, respectively.

This year, I've continued working in Alumni Relations as a member of Alumni Student Ambassadors' Executive Board, and I began working in the Career Center. I’ve also been able to intern a bit while I've been at Hopkins. Sophomore year I interned at Merrill Lynch in Baltimore, and the previous summer I worked for a small consulting firm in London. Between Junior & Senior years, I worked as a Summer Business Analyst with McKinsey, where I'll be returning after I graduate.

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On Campus Living
Back on campus, I’ve lived all over. As a freshman I lived in a single in AMR I's Royce House, which used to be an all-girls’ house. I loved living there! It was cozy and living on the freshman quad is such a great experience. Sophomore year I lived with a group of my friends in a four-person suite in Charles Commons, the newest dorm on campus. We each had single bedrooms, and we learned how to cook in our tiny kitchenette. When I returned from abroad, I moved off campus into an apartment building with one of my roommates from sophomore year. I've been living off-campus, in The Charles, for the past year.

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Feel free to ask me anything!

-Lauren B

You really don't need to worry about being "undecided" when you apply to Hopkins, or for that matter, any other college. While many freshmen may plan to study certain subjects, at Hopkins you actually cannot declare a major until the end of the spring in the College of Arts and Sciences. Freshmen are considered "pre-major" regardless of their intentions to study Public Health, French, Neuroscience, History, or whatever else they want.

My advisor was helpful, certainly, but I found that it really came down to classes. I really enjoyed certain classes, while others that I expected to like drove me crazy. First semester's covered grades made it easy to explore classes across different disciplines, and that definitely helped me to rule out a few possible majors. Just by process of elimination, I knew that I wanted to study something in the social sciences--I'm terrible at math, but the prospect of a pure Humanities degree didn't appeal either. Throughout freshman year I came to understand more about the social sciences at Hopkins, and the Public Health program really stood out to me as one that I would both enjoy and succeed at.

Most of my decision to major in public health came down to things like that. What am I good at? What am i interested in? And what is the overlap between those two things? It might take a while to really narrow this down, but two full years is a very long time, and will involve a lot of classes, jobs, and general growing up. By the end of sophomore year I promise you'll know what you want to study.

Saying that though, there are a lot of resources for students who are undecided, as well as students who have declared. Freshmen have an academic advisor assigned alphabetically, who you meet with several times a year. The Career Center can offer advice about internships and jobs that may sway your interests academically, as well. Professors are more than willing to speak about their subject matter, and research opportunities on campus may help you decide which major to pursue. Hopkins doesn't really offer "undecided" and "decided" academic resources, which means that there is a great deal available to you as an undecided freshman or sophomore.

Here is the website for academic advising http://www.jhu.edu/advising/

and freshman advising http://web.jhu.edu/freshman_advising

Let me know if you have any other questions, I hope this helped!