Yale University

Date: Sep 08 2013
Major: History/Histories (art history/etc.) (This Major's Salary over time)
Yale has been a truly wonderful experience for me. One thing it took me a while to realize is that the MOST important thing at Yale is not your grades or your classes, but the activities you participate in and the connections you make. Everybody who gets in is intelligent and can work hard to get mostly A grades. What differentiates the truly successful from the average successful Yale student has to do with who makes friends and who gets to know their instructors. Yale has a lot of opportunities to "hang out" with your professors at on-campus clubs, out-of-class programs, at lunch, etc. Make use of these! Go to Mory's with a prof, join clubs and societies, and so on. Coming from a public school background, I didn't do much of this at first and I found it intimidating. But now, my closest friends are from the groups I joined, where I was accepted right away. DO go out for drinks when the people in your college invite you. DO sacrifice one more late night on a paper in favor of one more late night of debate or writing for the school paper or something else. That's where the real life opportunities come from at Yale. And it's much more fun than you realize at first. In ten years nobody will remember if you got a B or an A- in that history class you took, but meanwhile Jed from the YPU will remember you as his friend and will offer you a job working for Congress. It's only worth coming to Yale if you're willing to play that game. It took me a while to be comfortable doing so, but I'm really glad I did!