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FactsSlang
- Blue Book - This Bible of class listings and descriptions is your shopping guide to academics.
- Bursar - A method of charging bookstore goods and Yale services to your ID card. The Bursar bill gets sent home to your parents!
- CCL - Cross Campus Library. This is the underground home of weenie bins and lots of ‘70s furniture. Almost as popular a place for socializing as for studying. Also, late hours mean lots of snoozing studiers.
- Couch Duty - There are two people getting it on in your bedroom, and you are not one of them. Guess where you get to sleep? Also known as “sexile.”
- D.S. - Directed Studies. Also known as Directed Suicide and Deep Sh*t. This is a freshman program that comprises three of your classes every semester (philosophy, literature, and history/politics). Now when someone mentions Kant, you can say in all honesty, “Critique of Pure Reason? I hated Critique of Pure Reason!”
- DUH - Acronym still used to refer to the old Department of University Health, even though they changed the name to University Health Services about 20 years ago. Have a stomach ache? According to these professionals, either you’re pregnant or you’re probably pregnant.
- Durfee - The Durfee Sweet Shoppe. This coffee and snack shop is located in the basement of Durfee on Old Campus. A great place to score late-night snacks.
- Gut - An easy class that takes the stress out of a busy schedule and fulfills distributional requirements. See “Listening to Music,” better known as “Clapping for Credit.”
- Legacy - A student who got into Yale because his or her parent or relative went here.
- Machine City - A subterranean oasis connecting CCL and Sterling. It’s a common place for study groups and TA meetings, and is home to vending machines that fulfill your study-induced munchies.
- Reading Period - A week with no classes where students supposedly prepare for their finals. You’ll party, you’ll goof off, and you’ll cry when finals come around.
- Science Hill - The location of most science classes. A half-mile from Old Campus, this is God’s way of punishing physics and bio-chemistry majors who would otherwise get no exercise.
- Shopping Period - During the first two weeks of classes, Yale gives you the chance to preview potential classes without any commitment. Why do only four classes of reading when you can do fifteen? Still, it is a good opportunity to make sure your calculus teacher speaks English.
- Spring Fling - During this campus-wide party the weekend before reading week, students blow off steam basking in the sun and listening to famous bands like Rusted Root or Wyclef.
- Swing Space - Officially Boyd Hall. This relatively new dorm temporarily houses students while their colleges undergo renovations.
- The Stacks - Not only is this the dusty tower where you can get lost looking for books, it is also the location for Yale’s famous stab at pornographic film.
- The Whale - Purportedly a hockey rink, but it looks like a whale.
- Weenie Bin - Similar to isolation tanks, the weenie bins are small, private study rooms in CCL.
Things I Wish I Knew Before Coming To School
- Don’t buy sheets or lamps from Yale. In the end, they are rip-offs.
- Don’t pack too much. You do not need your entire ballerina figurine collection! But you will need lots of lamps (some buildings at Yale have very bad overhead lighting), a shower basket, rugs, posters, and lots of underwear (no one wants to do laundry).
- During the winter, New Haven can get colder than one thought possible . . . ever!
- Most importantly, you can do anything you want at Yale. If you want a class that is restricted to juniors and seniors, plead and beg if you have to, your enthusiasm will win you a spot. If you want to travel abroad but you do not have the money, just apply for all grants or ask financial aid . . . if you’re creative enough, there is a possibility they could cave.
- No matter how much you like a class, odds are you won’t go if it is before 9:30 a.m.
- Yale students aren’t that intimidating.
Tips to Succeed
- Don’t party too much. Freedom is great, but just because you can go out and get wasted every night, does not mean you should.
- Don’t take on too much. As a freshman, there’s a temptation to do everything, because everything seems so cool. But in the end, no matter how cool all 15 of your extracurricular activities are, they will seem like the bane of your existence.
- Explore different majors, before committing to your (parents’) dream of becoming a doctor, lawyer, or engineer.There are so many options out there, and Yale is a great place to discover some of them.
- Go to Masters’ Teas. These opportunities to spend the afternoon drinking tea and eating little sandwiches while listening to great people speak is invaluable. Some recent guests include singer and songwriter Carole King, Actor Bronson Pinchot, Writer Tobias Wolff, and political commentator Arianna Huffington.
- See your freshman counselor as the resource he or she is. This senior knows the ins and outs of Yale and can give you advice on everything from which classes are good to take to where to take your parents. They also remember what it is like to be a freshman, and they truly want to help you through it.
- That said, don’t study all the time. Yale is a strong academic school, but it is also so much more. What you can learn about life is often just as valuable as what you can learn about astronomy. Remember, there is only so much information your brain can retain at once.
- Try to quickly learn what type of class structure suits you best. Do you like large lectures, or do you crave personal interaction with your professors? Do you want to talk or listen? Do you like to take tests or write papers?
Urban Legends
- Campus pundits Porn ‘n Chicken (a club devoted to watching pornography and eating fried chicken) made the first Ivy League pornographic film. The Staxxx is set in Sterling Memorial Library’s Stacks (home to millions of dusty books) and has a cast of Yale students.
- The basic idea for Federal Express was submitted as a term paper at Yale . . . and only got a C.
- The movie The Skulls is based on Yale’s secret society, Skull and Bones (whose past members include President George W Bush and his father).
Traditions
- Class Day - During Class Day, the ceremony the day before Commencement, it is tradition for students to smoke a special tobacco out of a clay pipe and to wave good-bye to Yale with a white handkerchief. Today, students do this while wearing the silliest hats imaginable, which is a new tradition building on an old one.
School Spirit
School spirit is strong at Yale. When you walk down the street, you see students parading in Yale clothing and accessories. This might be because there are few clothing stores near campus, but it still creates a sense of solidarity amongst the student body. Students are proud of the Yale name and are willing to defend it to the death against Harvard and Princeton. This is most apparent during the Harvard-Yale weekend. In preparation for this surge of school spirit, students buy shirts saying insults such as “Harvard sucks, and Princeton doesn’t matter,” and they party for their school. Alumni flock, and practically the entire student body goes to the game to cheer the football team to victory in New Haven or Boston.
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