Jess

Most people probably think of Yalies as the nerdy kids who live for schoolwork and never leave their rooms. While we do take our classes seriously, we put in just as much time and energy - and passion - into our extracurriculars and social lives. We probably pull a few more all nighters than your average college student, but on any given night of the week we can also be found rehearsing for shows, writing articles for publications, going to the gym, blowing off work to hang out with friends, or out partying. "Busy" is probably the only word that could describe ALL Yale students.

I absolutely LOVE Yale. Juggling everything can be stressful at times, but there isn't anything major I would change about it. The residential college system in particular is great - being in a community of about 500 students makes it easy to make friends, and it means you have at least two professors (your college's Master and Dean) who know your name as soon as you walk onto campus as a freshman. It makes Yale feel much less anonymous than it could otherwise. The other amazing thing about Yale is the other students. My classmates are brilliant, passionate, and interested in everything under the sun, but still manage to have fun and avoid taking themselves too seriously. To be surrounded by such intelligent people is a great experience.

Classes vary widely, in terms of quality, teaching style, size, etc. Apart from one or two classes that I found boring and poorly taught, the vast majority of the 20+ courses I've taken at Yale have been great. I'm an Anthropology major, and my favorite courses have been European Literature; Culture, Power, Oil; and Journalism. Apart from our majors, Yale students need to fulfill distribution requirements, which entail two classes each in foreign language, quantitative reasoning, writing, social sciences, humanities and arts, and science. Each course at Yale falls into at least one of those categories, so you always have choices about what to take to fulfill your requirements. So to fulfill my science requirement, for example, I took biological anthropology and an astrophysics course. Overall, while it's possible (at least outside the hard sciences) to get by taking only "gut" courses, most students try to challenge themselves and genuinely enjoy classes. After all, that's why we're here.

Yalies are really diverse in terms of geography, interests, and religion/ethnicity. There isn't a ton of socioeconomic diversity, though, and everyone is similarly ambitious and hard working. We're also a very liberal campus, though there is a vocal conservative minority. Bear in mind that I'm speaking from the perspective of a white, middle-class student, but I'd say that students generally hang out in diverse groups and get along well.

You can find a group for pretty much anything, and if you can't, you can start one. (My friends and I founded the Yale Jazzercise Association our freshman year.) Theater, a capella, community service, and publications are big on campus. A fair number of students are involved in Greek life, but frats are a bigger deal than sororities, and most frat parties are open to all students. Other than extracurriculars, though, I'd say residential colleges are a huge aspect of social life on campus, since they determine whom you live with and whom you see most often.