<p>Hi there, i'm from Scotland looking to study at Yale in the future. I'm going to go for a PHD (as I already have my bit of paper). What should I expect? Do I have to stand in line in my boxer shorts and accept a 'PPPPLLLLEEEDDDGGGEEE PIN!!!'. Do I have to go to Toga parties?</p>
<p>Do people really have to get the fire extinguishers out, skoosh you with them and shout to you like a drill sergeant in the morning just because you are new?</p>
<p>Please, let me know what I should expect. UK Uni's don't really have this sort of thing and don't act as communally as that (although the ancient universities do have some traditions (with heavy drinking involved) it doesn't go into 'PLLLEEEDDDDGGGEEEE PIN' territory).</p>
<p>I would be grateful if anyone could give me a rough idea.</p>
<p>If nobody has seen National Lampoon's Animal House I really do recommend it.</p>
<p>You have nothing to worry about! The movie is an extreme exaggeration of undergraduate frat life. Frat life is big in some undergraduate schools, and I do not think that Yale is one of those schools. Undergraduates in Yale are randomly assigned to colleges which they usually stay with for all four years. These colleges are run by the university and you will not have to endure any abuse.</p>
<p>In any case, as a grad student you will not be involved in much frat life.</p>
<p>Well i’ve seen the film “The Good Shepherd”. Will I have to covertly try to spy on some society, go to London and order a double breasted suit and go underneath the ground as a result of going to Yale??? (I’m only kidding, you don’t have to answer that, I have no such interest in such things, i’m a writer). LOL</p>
<p>^More than just Dartmouth. It was based on the college frat experiences of the three writers - who had attended college at Dartmouth, Washington Univ. St Louis, and McMaster Univ. in Canada, respectively. And as was stated, it was highly exaggerated.</p>
<p>If you will be in the Ph.D. program you have nothing to worry about. You won’t be in a frat, and you will be surrounded by people who are generally a little older and more mature and quite a bit more serious and focused on their studies than are some rowdy undergrad frat boys.</p>
<p>Just as I tell everyone looking to read at St Andrews that it’s really best to start growing your hair in a wild and unruly mullet, paint your face blue and charge around the countryside wearing all manner of plaid pieces of cloth, after all, most Yanks have seen “Braveheart”, haven’t we?</p>
<p>Lop me off a wee morsel o’ that haggis, won’tcha now, Jimmy McScot?</p>
<p>(just funnin’ wit’ ya, son, don’t get yer knickers in a twist)</p>
<p>(course the blue faces thing, that could work at Yale)</p>
<p>The Skulls WAS realistic. Yale is exactly like that.</p>
<p>For a realistic look at MIT life, rent “21”
For a realistic look at Harvard life, rent “Love Story”
For a realist look at Adams College life, rent “Revenge of the Nerds”</p>
<p>^ ^ Holy Haberdash, Batman! For a Scots you sure have a lot of persnickety requirements, I’m beginning to not be able to keep up! To sum up:</p>
<ol>
<li>No “The Thin Man”-wear</li>
<li>No boxer shorts</li>
<li>No PPPPPPLLLLLLEEEDDDDGGGEEE PIIIINNN </li>
<li>No Toga Parties</li>
<li>No Skoshing with fire extinguishers</li>
<li>No shouting at you like a drill sargeant in the morning just because you are new</li>
<li>No going to London and going underneath the ground (good luck getting from Islington to Elephant & Castle without getting on the Tube then)</li>
</ol>
<p>…I’m sure I’m forgetting a few things, mind you fill out the housing questionnaire and specify all this, or all bets are off the table…</p>
<p>Hey, I was just asking if I have to have a PPPLLLLLLEEEEEDDDDGGGGEEEE PIN. I like the drinking part of animal house and if I get into Yale I’ll be celebrating with a bottle of either Ardbeg or Quarter Cask Lephroig.</p>
<p>But while you’re celebrating please keep in mind that it’s illegal in much of the US to buy alcohol for, or provide alcohol to, anyone under age 21. They will ask you, but you must say no.
[/sermon]</p>
<p>I completely understand that and I will say to everyone reading this: Don’t try to buy this under age.</p>
<p>In Scotland you can drink at the age of 18, but for me it’s OK to drink in the states because I’m 30 years of age. I will not share it to anyone under 21.</p>
<p>A little history. When young men were being drafted to go to Vietnam and die - even into the Marines! - the drinking age was lowered to 18. That followed reducing the voting age to 18 and was seen as moving adult responsibilities to a group that, after all, the nation considered old enough to die in combat. The drinking age was raised back to 21, mostly because moralism driven by the surge in Protestant Evangelism became a if not the dominant conservative force.</p>
<p>(Young men and now young women still die in combat but there is no draft and that makes all the difference.)</p>
<p>Animal House was possible when the drinking age was 18 (though the original stories behind AH at Dartmouth are from years before). Yale had happy hours with free mixed drinks and beer. Some of them were massive, like the Thursday evening Calhoun Happy Hour, but drinking receptions / sponsored parties were common. The dining halls served bloody marys and screwdrivers at breakfast before home football games.</p>
<p>It amazes how society has changed. It used to be taken for granted that youth was when you did stupid things, that getting drunk and making a fool of yourself was part of growing up. (Remember, you weren’t required to drink and in some ways there was less peer pressure because drinking wasn’t a rebellious, illegal act then.) We’re now in an era when any publicity about kids drinking leads to moral outrage. Everything about the period when the drinking was 18 is colored by the current dominance of this condemnatory perspective.</p>