Throughout 2014, EducationUSA will highlight the experiences of Canadian students at a variety of campuses across the United States. Follow our blog series to hear firsthand from currents students and alumni of U.S. universities. We continue our series with Léo Kadota, an Ottawa native and Ashbury College graduate, who currently studies at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.
I am currently a sophomore at Brown University and carrying out the next step in my academic journey after graduating from Ashbury College (Ottawa) in 2012. I hope to pursue a career in medicine, though I am still trying to explore what it is that I actually love doing. It’s an obvious question without an obvious answer, and it partly influenced me to look to study in the United States.
I spent nine years at Ashbury College, a school where my average class size was around fifteen students. Accustomed to an intimate academic setting, I thought that the academic and campus life at Brown University was a good fit for a student like me. Choosing to attend Brown wasn’t easy: a scholarship from McGill would have helped with tuition, I would be alone among my friends choosing a solo route for university, and the border slightly complicates access to my family. On the other hand, the excitement of attending a university in a different country - starting from a blank slate by myself – outweighed all of these concerns.
As a Canadian, studying in the U.S. allows me to experience a different lifestyle that is still similar enough that I don’t experience too much culture shock. The first weeks were a little strange. What I thought was an intimidating and long process of applying to American schools - taking the SATs, being interviewed, using the Common Application - was nothing but normal to my American peers. In retrospect, the application process isn’t that bad, even if it takes a little more work than applying to a Canadian school. If there’s an American school that looks to be a better fit, apply to it. It’s not worth thinking about what could have been!
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The Brown University Running Club on its way to The Color Run in October, 2013. Léo Kadota at top left. (Photo credit: Phoebe Draper, Brown University) |
