Hi U-FLi friends! We’re restarting our U-FLi Community Narratives with an interview from early March. We met with Bright Tsagli (he/his), a RUE (Resumed Undergraduate Education) student ’23 from Ghana. Bright is concentrating in Economics & Public Policy.

How are you doing?

I’m doing okay. I’m taking humanities this semester so it’s a lot of papers, a lot of reading. I’m taking an Ethnic Studies class, Academic Writing, Foundations of Development, and Healthcare in the US.

How has it been adjusting to Brown?

That’s a good question. Honestly, it’s been rough academically because I took some time off. I haven’t been in that academic setting and Brown is very rigorous. I was struggling last semester with classes. I think almost every first year student struggles. 

I was at Germany. I enrolled at a university over there, dropped out, and went to pursue soccer semi-professionally. I got injured at one point and that took like 9 months to recover. My mother always wanted me to go to school. I had to find a new place to start over so I came here with no family and enrolled at a community college. I was also international so paying for it was tough. I did community college for two years, put a hold on my transcript, and had to take multiple jobs to raise money to get that bill off. During that time I was thinking of going back to school so I was working on applying to a couple of scholarships. 

I was working a full-time job last year before Brown. I was working in digital marketing for a year. I did all the paid content that went on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat for T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, Home Goods. I was with an agency in New York so when I was working there, I got the Jack Kent Cooke scholarship. With the scholarship you have to go back to school. I applied to a few scholarships but I had some immigration issues so I had to withdraw some applications. Brown was the only one that would work with me, so now I’m here for my second semester.

Social wise, it’s a different scene in terms of the age group. Sometimes it plays a bigger path especially if you’re an older student. Trying to find that social group and integration has been rough. RUE has its own community but even within there’s people in their 40s or 50s with family who just go to class and go home. It’s rough in that kind of setting, but I think it’s been good this semester. Last semester was pretty rough. 

Who are you away from Brown?

If I’m not here, I’m really helping my sisters in Germany with their homework and checking on them.