<p>This post does not seek to do any of the following: denigrate other colleges and universities, whitewash negative aspects of Yale, exaggerate positive aspects of Yale, or trick anyone into attending Yale. This post is simply meant to inform prospective students why I chose Yale and why I firmly believe that my choice was the right one.</p>
<p>Let's break it down:</p>
<p>STUDENT LIFE</p>
<p>RESIDENTIAL COLLEGES:
One of the first things that you find out about Yale is that it is broken up into 12 residential colleges. I'll be honest - other universities have residential colleges. Harvard and Princeton both do. However, there's a fundamental difference between Yale's and the ones at Harvard and the ones at Princeton. At Harvard, you live your first year without affiliation, and you then go through a 'blocking process' through which you choose up to 8 other classmates. They only control for gender, and they randomly place you into 1 of 12 colleges. At Princeton, you get your affiliation right away, but the system is a 2-year system. I hear they're turning it into a 4-year system, but you can chose to leave your college.</p>
<p>At Yale, everything occurs through your residential college. As a freshman, your dorm consists entirely of your college's freshmen. You get to know them very personally. Each college has a dining hall, and although you can eat elsewhere, most people eat at their own dining hall. Why? It's simple college spirit. There's no rational reason why Jonathan Edwards is better than Branford, but JE freshmen learn to chant "JE Sux!" (Their motto) as soon as they step onto campus. In fact, as I am writing this, there is a colossal 35-feet-tall Christmas-lights formation hanging outside Farnam which spells out "JE SUX". It was put up entirely by freshmen who have spent less than 3 months here. It's the magic of Yale that one can be assigned randomly to one of twelve colleges and still decide that their college is the best. Your college might sponsor trips to see Les Miserables in New York, or it might sponsor a themed '80's dance that the students of the college throw for the entire university. The JE christmas lights were bought with money given to Yale freshmen from the JE master.</p>
<p>which brings me to...</p>
<p>SUPPORT SYSTEM
It's great. Honestly, you have a residential college master, who is in charge of student life. He (or she, but I'll be phallocentric to reduce awkward wording) will invite famous people to speak as guests to a small group of people - Master's Teas. He eats dinner in the dining hall, lives in the residential college, and holds fun events almost every weekend.</p>
<p>The residential college dean is in charge of your academic career (among other things). He'll approve your schedule, talk to you about classes, send out emails warning you when you can drop classes, etc... Because he has to deal with only 400-500 kids rather than an student body, he builds a relationship with you over the four years that you're in the college.</p>
<p>You have an academic adviser - for freshmen, it's some random professor who gets to know you, talks to you about your schedule, etc... Once you declare a major, you get a professor who is a relevant department, so that he can help guide you along in selecting classes and fulfilling requirements.</p>
<p>You also have freshman counselors. Informally known as FroCo's, these nifty fellows take the place of RA's. If you've heard horror stories about RA's or RCA's at other colleges, don't worry. Yale FroCo's are seniors who get free room and board in exchange for living in the freshmen dorms. They buy freshmen food from the residential college budget; they meet with you to find out how classes are going; they help you select classes and impart to you their 3 years of extra wisdom. They aren't disciplinarians - at all.</p>
<p>This leads to my next point...</p>
<p>DISCIPLINE/SAFETY</p>
<p>Because FroCo's are not disciplinarians, there are officially NO disciplinarians at Yale. I mean this in the most positive sense. FroCo's have a few rules: no drinking with freshmen, and no hooking up with freshmen. That's about it. Yale's alcohol policy is quoted extensively: "Yale treats alcohol as a safety issue, not a disciplinary issue." In other words, when some freshman started throwing up from drinking too much, one of the FroCo's took him to DUH (Department of Undergraduate Health). He received a minor talking-to about being safe.</p>
<p>New Haven police have bigger fish to fry than some frat house throwing a late party. Yale police, it is joked, exist to protect students from New Haven police. Yale police and campus security will often help students back to dorms. This leads to my next point...</p>
<p>CAMPUS SAFETY</p>
<p>Yes, New Haven isn't the greatest neighborhood in the world. No, I haven't been mugged yet. The area immediately around campus is very nice - there's an Urban Outfitters, J. Crew, Barnes and Nobles, Starbucks, Au Bon Pain within one block of freshman housing. There are also a bunch of non-chain restaurants within a similar radius. The point is - there's no real reason to wander off campus. If you do, you do so during the daytime or in groups. It's a basic safety precaution, and I'd bet that the reason assault rates are so low at Yale [ <a href="http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/photos/expansions/expansion_007690.jpg%5B/url%5D">http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/photos/expansions/expansion_007690.jpg</a> ] is because students take the time to be safe and because Yale takes security seriously. Common sense is never a bad thing.</p>
<p>ACADEMICS</p>
<p>CREDITS</p>
<p>You need 36 credits, or 36 semester classes, to graduate. That's 9 a year, or an average of 4-5 a semester. Most peer institutions only require 32. I might actually take closer to 38-39 classes, because there's so much that interests me here.</p>
<p>DISTRIBUTIONAL REQUIREMENTS</p>
<p>I'd love to have an open curriculum, like the kind that exists at Brown or Wesleyan. But I'm not narrow-minded enough to have a problem with the minimal requirements that Yale enforces. Yale requires that students take at least: 2 writing-intensive courses, 2 social science courses, 2 science courses, 2 humanities courses, and 2 quantitative reasoning courses. You're also required to take between 1 and 3 semesters of a foreign language, depending on your fluency upon entrance.</p>
<p>These seem like a lot, but they're really not. Social sciences range from econ omics to psychology. "Philosophy of Physics" fulfills a science requirement. "Logic", (along with any math class, many sciences, and some social sciences) fulfill quantitative reasoning. The writing requirement will only throw off those who intended to take 36 math and science classes. The foreign language requirement is the most bothersome, but people take everything from "Legal Spanish" to "Heiroglyphics" to fulfill it.</p>
<p>MAJORS, MINORS, DOUBLE MAJORS</p>
<p>There are no minors at Yale. If you want to double major, you can overlap/double-count at most two semester classes. It's not easy to double major, but people still do it all the time.</p>
<p>SPECIAL NOTES</p>
<p>I'm taking Directed Studies (DS), also backronymed as Directed Suicide. It's 3 full year courses that cover the breadth of the western canon. Compare it to Columbia's core curriculum, except that it's optional. This means that that the kids in DS are self-selected from among incoming Yale freshmen.</p>
<p>There are downsides to the program. I don't consider the work overwhelming, but the people who do take DS tend to be know-it-alls. I got lucky with 2 of my 3 discussion sections (18 kids, one prominent professor), but particular students have already gained infamy for being "cla<strong>holes" or "section a</strong>holes" for their obnoxious attitudes during discussions.</p>
<p>This leads into the final category...</p>
<p>THE PEOPLE</p>
<p>Honestly, the people are what makes Yale special. I'm not going to lie - there are awkward kids at Yale. There are kids at Yale who are kind of creepy and weird. There are legacies and faculty children who probably wouldn't have gotten in if they had different parents. There are jock-type athletes (not all athletes - just a handful). But even these people are completely fine - Yale lets them find their niche and they learn to adapt. There are crazy competitive kids at Yale too - freshmen at least. By now, most of the kids who were once fretting over every point are finally learning to take a more holistic approach.</p>
<p>But anyways, that's a small minority. You have to take the good with the bad. The good of Yale is that the place is open, tolerant, and most importantly, fun loving. Yale's tolerant of alternative lifestyles, but also tolerant of straight-edged kids. You can go to a party, not drink, and not feel pressured. You can also go to a school sponsored dance with a member of the same gender, and you won't feel ostracized. But more important than tolerance is Yale's propensity for fun. Yale is a decidedly anti-competitive place (although I've heard mixed things from the premeds). I collaborate on problem sets; I ask my peers to edit my papers; I don't worry about someone else beating me on a test. Yale fosters a spirit of community - while other colleges might treat life (or college) as a horse race, where everyone is jockeying for position, at Yale, life becomes a game of golf. It can be frustrating at times, sure. Nothing's perfect. But it's so nice to stand back and watch the ball fly.</p>