Global Education

Brown’s mission makes clear the University’s dedication not only to serving the community and the nation, but also the world. We recognize that understanding global issues is essential to citizenship in a changing world.

The Brown experience is inherently global in nature. Students and scholars from Brown routinely advance knowledge and understanding on issues of global significance. Members of the Brown community travel across the world for research and educational experiences. And international perspectives infuse academic life on campus every day, in classrooms, laboratories, events and activities.

International Students at Brown

More than 2,600 of Brown’s students come to College Hill from countries beyond the United States. The Global Brown Center for International Students offers orientation programs, community-building opportunities and many other initiatives, empowering international students to thrive in all aspects of their lives at Brown.

Through initiatives such as the peer-based International Mentoring Program, the center creates a home away from home for international students, ensuring the opportunity to embrace and celebrate international identities, while also recognizing and appreciating the diversity of students’ experiences.

Global Brown is a consortium of all of the offices at Brown that support the mobility of international students, scholars and visitors to the Brown campus and the global mobility of the Brown community to various corners of the world. These offices facilitate opportunities for transformative, cross-cultural global education, research and learning experiences at Brown and beyond.

Study Abroad

Each year, more than 450 undergraduates at Brown study in more than 40 countries. Among the many opportunities:

  • Brown’s study abroad programs offer a variety of experiences — from full immersion in Brazilian culture and the Portuguese language in Rio de Janeiros, to an engineering program in Palaiseau, France, to a semester focused on the social sciences, arts and humanities in Seoul, South Korea.
  • Students can pursue distinctive opportunities offered exclusively by Brown’s global centers, in collaboration with other highly selective U.S. universities through the Consortium for Advanced Studies Abroad, a collaborative of 12 leading global research universities, and through a wide range of approved programs run by other institutions.
  • Undergraduates can gain direct experience in a dynamic field and immerse themselves in the communities of Berlin, Dublin, Singapore, Sydney or Washington, D.C., through the Brown Semester Internship Program,
  • Enroll in Brown courses that embed an international study experience through the Global Experiential Learning and Teaching program during Winter Session and Global Summer Program. These Brown faculty-led programs are dedicated to multidisciplinary and evolving themes that students engage in while abroad.

Global Partnerships

Brown maintains strong partnerships with world-class universities and institutions across the globe.

Brown maintains strong partnerships with universities across the globe, from Brazil and Cuba to the United Kingdom and Japan. These relationships provide opportunities for undergraduates to study abroad, graduate students to conduct field research and engage with peers and mentors, and faculty and staff to conduct individual or collaborative research with colleagues.

International collaborations also allow students, visiting scholars and faculty from partner universities to participate in teaching, research and community activities at Brown. Some of these scholars have been displaced by war, political persecution or other threats. Visiting displaced scholars have come to Brown through programs such as the Institute of International Education’s Scholar Rescue Fund and the New University in Exile Consortium at the New School.