Yale University Top Questions

Lectures were great. Yale students have lots of intellectual conversations, in and outside of class. Some professors are accessable. It's hard to get a well-paying job after most majors unless it's in computer science.. Most other majors lead to a life of academia or social services. If you're having a tough time, there are TAs you can meet with and even math and writing tutors in each dorm. Students aren't very competitive, but they are all smart, so you'd better do your best. We're mostly competing with ourselves, unless you plan on going to another school afterwards such as law school or med school. The requirements are fine. You get a wide variety of subjects and topics. I enjoyed all the literature, psychology, English, history and so forth although I never did that well in them. I'm not into science, but I didn't have to take any since I was already taking lots of math and computer science classes.

Yes, in lectures it is the most difficult to get to know a professor, just due to sheer size and more of an interaction with the TAs, but even then Professors try to get to know as many students as possible. Classes here are nice in that they bring together people of diverse backgrounds and experiences who eventually grow close due to working together so hard. Students study a lot, almost round the clock, when they are not eating, sleeping, showering, volunteering, etc. They make good use of time, and thus simultaneously motivate other students to do likewise. It's almost contagious. Intellectual conversations abound outside the class, to the point that one can sometimes learn so much more outside the class. It is really wonderful to realize how much you learn through the lives of others.

It's hard to say anything definitive about Yale's academics that the general public doesn't already know, because the academics here are pretty much whatever you want them to be. There are large lecture classes where the professor will never learn your name, and there are small seminars whose debates get carried into the dining halls with the students. You can develop close relationships with professors if you seek them out - most of them are ready to spend time on you if they know that's what your looking for. There are Yalies destined to manage hedge funds, whose goal in life is to make money, and there are Yalies who could happily drift in academia forever, experiencing joy in the act of learning. Yale's distribution requirements can be a hassle for students who came to college hoping never to take another math class in their lives, but "quantitative reasoning" is a broad enough category that even these people will find something within it to interest them. The classes themselves are varied and interesting, mostly taught by professors. The freshmen level math classes (up through multi-variable calculus) are often taught by grad students (some with incomprehensible foreign accents) and are graded on a curve (which can hurt you!), making that department the least pleasant experience for many students. I took a program this (my freshman) year called Directed Studies, which studies part of the "western canon" through literature, history of political thought, and philosophy. We have two seminars and a lecture in each of those topics per week. Those seminars are particularly wonderful for students who want to engage in lively intellectual discussions, and the program is a good opportunity for students to meet others with similar academic passions. There is a lot (really a lot) of reading, and everyone writes two papers every three weeks, so the work can be pretty intense. For me, DS was the perfect introduction to philosophy (I am planning on majoring in Physics and Philosophy, a combo option here), which is a strong and eccentric department at Yale. DS is a great way to learn how to think, but it's impossible to digest everything, and it's often disappointing for students when they realize this.

Classes here are completely varied. You can find a class on practically anything. They range in size from ten to two-hundred and hardly any of them start before ten! All the professors are very different. Some make an effort to get to know their students, while others simply lecture twice a week. However, every one of them is guaranteed to be a character! If you search through and find the interesting stuff, you can do some amazing things. This year, my Aztecs of Mexico class went on a field trip to Mexico City!

I didn't take as good advantage of professor-student relationships as I could or should have, but I attribute that largely to being younger and not really knowing how to talk to adults. I loved the anthropology major, which introduced me to an entirely new curriculum as well as enabled me to take every class offered with the words "sex" or "gender" in the title. I guess I would have liked to have more of a relationship with some of my professors, especially the really impressive ones, but again, that may have been more my fault than theirs. I feel like the competition level at Yale is really what you bring to it - if you decide you're going to get straight A's and get inducted into Phi Beta Kappa in your junior year, you can certainly do that, though it comes at a price (social consequences, time management). Otherwise, you definitely don't have to get caught up in the competition. I sort of decided that I was going to flourish in these other ways and do my best to keep my grades up - which is why I graduated with an A- average. The education at Yale is definitely geared towards learning for its own sake, more than getting some sort of trade job. I realize that lots of Economics majors get banking and consulting jobs, but I think that's more because people who want to get high-paying jobs major in Econ... sort of a self-perpetuating stereotype. I worked in publishing after I graduated, which had absolutely nothing to do with my major, no matter how creatively I tried to make it seem like it did. That's okay with me, though; I'm a fan of learning for learning's sake, and I think that most of the people who go to Yale who want to get jobs in the real world are the kind of smart, capable people who naturally will do well in any job environment.

Academics are good here in virtue of the class sizes--you can take big lectures, in which case you generally interact with your Teaching Assistants (who are usually awesome), but you can also take seminars with really great professors (about 20 students each) and then the professors really do get to know you. This semester I'm in a seminar with the head of the History department, Laura Engelstein, who is a genius and so dedicated to us each individually. It's a great experience that you can't have at bigger schools. Generally in these smaller classes, everyone participates (though often there are 4 or 5 loud students and 4 or 5 silent ones).

Some of the intro classes have 100+ students, but most of these classes have sections with TAs, and, if you have questions, you can always email your professor, who'll usually get back to you fairly quickly. Understandably, some of the TAs are bastards, but that's just the luck of the draw; sometimes you can pick which section you want, so just avoid the TAs that everyone else had told you not to get.

It's Yale, so the academics are as good as they can get. The libraries are incredible, especially the rare manuscripts libraries. I always feel like I have more opportunities for research, study abroad, etc. than I could possibly take advantage of. Every year we get dozens of emails about summer opportunities for research, internships, and trips abroad.

I certainly have intellectual conversations outside class, although somewhat rarely with my classmates. I bring what I'm studying to my friends, and they to me- of course, what we're studying at any given time may or may not have anything to do with our classes. I'm sure my professors would know my name if my attendance weren't so bad. The attendance policy here... well, there isn't one (except in foreign language classes); no one's going to bitch at you if you never show up. I often prefer to skip lecture and just do all the readings (by the way, no one does /all/ the readings): this method is incredibly ineffective. Professors care much, much more about what they're telling you than about the readings they assign. Most people DO go to class because they've realized it's easier to get good grades that way. I think the education here is geared towards learning for its own sake; the students take it upon themselves to be career driven. It's certainly not a hostile environment for academics like myself, however, and the incredibly sparse required distribution credits mean there's no excuse for me to take a class I don't like.

Profs at Yale generally know their students if the student takes the time get to know the professor. Almost all of them keep great visiting hours and many of them were once smart, cool kids themselves. Many Yalies work way harder than they need to once they're at the school, due to their competitive nature. But it's easy to get by on very little as well. My trick was to go to every class, and to take meticulous notes. That way you rarely had to do any of the reading at all, and to someone who reads a little slower than other smarties, there was always WAY too much reading.