Angela Garcia '90

Current Roles: Educator

GISP: Urban Elementary Education

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It took Angela a while to find her place within the Open Curriculum. “My first two years I was miserable, so I did this prescribed like ‘I’m gonna be a poli-sci major, I’m gonna be a psychology major,’ and trying to do the coursework.” It was not until she took a leave of absence and studied abroad that Angela felt prepared to take advantage of the freedom that the Open Curriculum offers. “So, even though I was a poli-sci major, I discovered I wanted to go into education,” she recalls. “I was able to explore education and I took extra classes and just that opportunity and I did a GISP and just that opportunity to kind of explore things that I didn’t know were options when I first got there.” Angela’s biggest challenge with the Open Curriculum was “coming in and not really knowing what the Open Curriculum was about and just kinda my time at Brown like, ‘Oh, this is what it’s about! This is what I’m able to do!’ I don’t know if I was just clueless my first few years?’”

Another challenge Angela faced was the lack of a strong advising network. “I remember going to my advisor to run an idea of what I wanted to do, suggesting this idea and I got no feedback. The man just looked at me and he didn’t respond.” Luckily, when she was thinking about taking time off, Angela came to the then-called Resource Center and found helpful advising. “That was the first time I felt like somebody took the time to figure out what I was thinking about, kinda what I might wanna do and there were resources there for me to look for.”

After returning to Brown and wanting to dive into her interest for education, Angela participated in a GISP called Urban Elementary Education where she and three others spent time volunteering in a Providence school. Exploring a new topic through collaboration was what Angela found most rewarding about the experience. “The idea of a group of women and just being like ‘the school doesn’t  have an elementary education program, so we’re gonna do it on our own!’ and just going and finding the school where we were gonna work at and that opportunity to have that conversation and and thinking about what we thought were the issues of urban education were. That was really powerful, that work, with adult learners, you gotta grapple with something but don’t do it alone, do it with a group of people. That was really powerful.”

Angela advises current Brown students to be open and take risks. “Oh, be open, be open, be open, be open to everyone you meet there. That is such a powerful place, that place shaped my life, it changed it…. And taking advantage of what Brown has to offer, if you have the opportunity to do a GISP, if you have an opportunity to take a class that’s not in your concentration, to take that risk, those are the things I came away with from Brown, to take intellectual risks, don’t always play it safe…. You’ll get into grad school, you’ll get into med school. Enjoy being there at the moment.”