<p>The only time I’ve heard my D complain about anything this past year has been about the housing issue next year - deciding who to room with and how to tell the ones you don’t want to room with. It was very stressful for her and she had a miserable few days but apparently it is all sorted out and everyone is happy.</p>
<p>I want to post a response to what JE10 said because of a few things that I think he got wrong.</p>
<p>There are definitely downsides to Yale. Yeah, residential colleges can create drama. But the only reason they have drama is because people are tighter-knit than they would be at other schools. The variety of living options at Yale obviously creates positional scarcity - if two groups want to go for the last quad, someone’s going to lose. On the other hand, other schools don’t have this problem because you have no choice - everyone’s going to live in a double or move off campus.</p>
<p>I was a part of the same JE 2010 room draw last semester (and one’s coming up again this year!) that JE10 talks about in his post. While he clearly has a particular view of it, my view of it was like a family with 100 kids running around complaining about who gets what room of the house. JE 2010 has a panlist (an email discussion list) so that people can message the rest of their college. Sometimes it’s used for good, but with great power comes great responsibility and not all college students (even Yalies) are 100% responsible. </p>
<p>The fact is, any or all of the downsides of residential college life are tied to the upsides. People will know you, whether you like it or not. This is a great thing, but deeper bonds inevitably lead to more tension. You’re better behaved around acquaintances than around family sometimes.</p>
<p>I for one love the residential college system at Yale and could not imagine having to deal with typical dorm life the way friends have to at other schools. It’s like having a super-big family, and it’s awesome.</p>
<p>Just briefly, I’m not entirely sure how I got anything wrong, it seems you’re backing me up, just with more euphemistic language.</p>
<p>But I mean, this is the kind of thing I don’t like about Yale, actually, and why I started posting on this site in the first place: when there’s something bad, Yalies will never just say it; all the negative stuff has to be sugar-coated. Honestly, this is the kind of stuff I really, really wish Yalies would stop. Sure it’s not lying, but, well, think of the children, basically–I WISH someone had just unloaded every bad thing at Yale to me before I signed on, but no one ever just says, “Hey, this bad,” it’s always “Hey, this isn’t SO bad and besides there THIS great thing.”</p>
<p>Do you see where I’m coming from? I’ve gotten several messages from people on these boards asking me for info because they too just want to be told straight up how stuff is minus the on-the-bright-side stuff. Please ALL YALIES on these boards: if there’s a problem, just say it. They won’t kick you out; you’re already at Yale, haha! You other Yalies even have the benefit of being completely anonymous. I’m willing to put my easily google-able name to everything I write here, only because if you asked me in person, I’d tell you the same, and I’d probably already have drawn a comic about it!</p>
<p>We’re here to help people decide on Yale. I want to draw for a living, but whenever I meet a pro, I always ask them to convince NOT to draw. </p>
<p>If you can stomach the worst, assuming you’d ever even encounter it (I freely admit I’m a “negative outlier”), you’re in pretty good shape for the <em>overwhelmingly</em> positive time you will otherwise have at Yale, 2013.</p>
<p>Okay fine fine fine. JE10 I respect your point of view. There ARE bad things about Yale. You’re just not posting the right Bad Things. I’ll post some, to prove I’m not brainwashed or delusional. There are two categories. First, the things that are uniquely bad to Yale.</p>
<p>Bad things about Yale:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Crime and Homelessness. New Haven is worse in this regard than many comparable institutions (maybe not as bad as Penn or Columbia, but definitely worse than Harvard, Princeton, Stanford).</p></li>
<li><p>Science hill. If you’re into sciences, you’ll be trekking. It’s only a few blocks, but it seems further to bitter science majors.</p></li>
<li><p>You’re stuck in a college. Too be honest, almost everyone seems happy in their respective college, but if you are unhappy, there’s little you can do about it besides transferring to a different one. You will have to live and interact with your college-mates for four years. (and there are many many upsides to residential college life)</p></li>
<li><p>If it’s your scene, drinking laws in CT have gotten really restrictive. Party on. Rah.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Bad Things about “Elite East Coast Schools” in general</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Yale is really politically liberal. The level of Obama-love hurts sometimes.</p></li>
<li><p>Yale is really effing liberal in other respects too. There is a weird fixation with sex and nudity.</p></li>
<li><p>Yalies have poor taste in music and generally eschew Hip-Hop, Pop, Punk, and Metal in favor of such genres as Indie Rock, Underground Hip-Hop, and Folk.</p></li>
<li><p>Yalies can be pretentious. They’re not always Harvard-level, perhaps, but pretension abounds nonetheless.</p></li>
<li><p>Yalies can be a sheltered lot. There are students who don’t recognize a washing machine upon arrival in New Haven. There are students who’ve never seen a homeless man before.</p></li>
<li><p>A glut of humanities majors.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>hmm - restrictive drinking laws in Conecticut? I thought rarely anyone gets busted for drinking?</p>
<p>That’s because Yalies tend to be a smart bunch and because the Yale Police generally shield us from the New Haven police.</p>
<p>JE10, I disagree that Yalies try to hide the “bad things” about Yale. Honestly, I’m almost entirely happy with Yale as an institution. Sure there’s a ton of work and there are interpersonal issues (like there are at every point in everyone’s life), but those are problems you’ll encounter wherever you go.</p>
<p>My one gripe is the one downside to the residential college system: I LOVE it for the most part, but housing can get really messy. Unless you go through a transfer process, you have to live with people in your college, so (assuming your friends are distributed randomly around Yale – though generally you will have more friends in your college than in others) only 1/12 of your pals will be in your college with you. That said, these things tend to work out just fine anyway, and one of my current suitemates transferred out of a college where she didn’t have a huge number of friends into mine, where she has a lot. </p>
<p>Short of that, though, I really really love being here. I couldn’t imagine going anywhere else, and can easily say that coming here was the best decision I’ve made in my life thus far. I love my friends, my suitemates, my classes, my major, my advisor and my activities. The positives at Yale far, far outweigh any negatives, and the vast majority of people I know here love it. Most issues you’ll encounter are a consequence of, well, life and aren’t something unique to Yale. You’ll have roommate drama, that obnoxious guy in Econ section and the absent-minded professor anywhere you go.</p>
<p>I went to Yale Law, class of 1991. Definitely had huge cockroaches in my room, but we did have an individual bathroom, and that might have been the problem. The dorms were renovated since then, so I don’t know if this would still be a problem.</p>