When thinking about where to apply to college, San Antonio native Sara Homma found herself conflicted. Homma was a strong academic student with an interest in public policy, but also a talented artist with a lifelong passion for art. “I didn’t know if I could navigate my two equally strong interests,” said Homma.
She found the ideal solution in the Brown|RISD Dual Degree Program (BRDD), a five-year undergraduate program that lets students earn bachelor’s degrees from both Brown and the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). The program is one of the most selective undergraduate degree programs in the country. Applicants must first be accepted into both schools independently, and only the top candidates among those are admitted to the dual degree program.
“My mom and I visited Brown and RISD when I was a freshman in high school,” she said; “I learned about the program, and set my sights on it then and there.” Knowing how competitive the program was drove Homma throughout high school. “I just worked really hard on my academics in school, but through it all, painting remained important to me. I poured all my effort into both things,” she said.
Homma was surprised and thrilled to learn she was admitted to the program. “It was just unbelievable to me that I actually got in,” she said. “I knew having the opportunity to study at Brown alongside other students who care deeply about academics, and to study at RISD and to be able to make art alongside students who are just as passionate about art as I am was an unbelievable opportunity,” she said.
But when she arrived as a first-year student, Homma found the transition difficult. BRDD students are required to follow RISD’s rigorous first-year curriculum just like all other RISD students. “I was suddenly thrust into the art school environment where I was only taking art classes and having to produce a lot of work. I was taking three eight-hour studio courses per week. All my homework was art! It was a really difficult adjustment for me.”
She also felt culturally out of place. “I grew up in Texas, in a pretty conservative area; I went to a private religious high school with a military history. So I grew up in an environment in which artistic expression wasn’t highly valued.”
“I really struggled to identify with a lot of my RISD classmates at first,” she said. Homma felt more at home among her Brown classmates. “I felt like I fit in better at Brown. There were more people at Brown with experiences similar to mine.”
But over the course of the program, Homma felt something change. “At first, I was very torn about my identity as an academic and as an artist. I felt that they were very separate things.” Over time, Homma began to see her art and her studies as a concentrator in International and Public Affairs (IAPA) as synergistic. “Today, international and public affairs is just as much a part of my artistic practice as my artistic training; now that I see the two things as symbiotic, they both inform and strengthen each other.”
Homma stated that her experience in IAPA has made her a better artist. “I was really trying to find my voice as a painter,” she said, “I had become very technically skilled, but I was struggling to bring substance to my work. I made good pictures, but I didn’t feel they were saying much.”
