Undergraduate Admission

Source: https://admission.brown.edu/student-profiles/adira-altman Parent: https://admission.brown.edu/explore/student-voices

Adira Altman

Student Profiles

Class of 2025 | Providence, Rhode Island | Biology

Adira is a member of Beauty and the Beats, Brown’s Disney-themed a cappella group, the Infectious Disease Society Brown Tabletop Roleplaying and Alpha Delta Phi, a literary society that is included among Brown’s residential Greek organizations. She also works as a greeter at nearby Miriam Hospital.

I love to sing. I love to act. I love to tell stories. Basically, theater is the intersection of all of that. One of the things that sold me on Brown was I got an email from the theater and performing arts department and they were like, ‘You can do theater, but you can also be a doctor,’ and I was like, ‘Really? Sold.’

I was very interested in theater. I still really like theater, but I was also just in love with biology and medicine, and so having a school that allowed me to pursue both interests — that encouraged me to do that — was definitely the deciding factor.

‘Culture and Health’ was an amazing class that introduced me to medical anthropology; I had no idea that that was even a thing. Anthropology gives such a different side to health and especially a critical look at the Western world and how we understand the world and how that relates to health. It’s been absolutely eye-opening.

I was able to take a class in which I met Stephen Sondheim a month before he died. It was just amazing to hear his words. If we hadn't arranged to meet him [on Zoom] when we did, we would've never been able to meet this man who is an absolutely revolutionary figure in theater. So that was really, really unique and something that I never thought I would be able to do.”