It will sound cliche, but one of my favorite parts of moving along in my Yale journey has been growing to find different spaces and people that feel like pieces of familiarity in a confusing sea of chaos. My common room of has been one of those spaces my sophomore fall.
Yale is known for its distinct residential college system, but I think one of the most special parts of it which isn’t as talked about is the suite structure of the dorms. Most students on campus live in suites, meaning multiple bedrooms are connected to a common living space, almost like a shared apartment. The common room is a great place to socialize because it’s a shared space, and it’s where people will most often have their friends over or host gatherings and parties.
This year, I live in a cozy Davenport three-person suite with two friends, and our common room has been known amongst our friends to be a place where people often spend hours hanging out and then falling asleep.
Countless movie nights and late night cramming sessions have been hosted here, and there seems to be something about the dim lighting and the snug air that gets people relaxed and drowsy — these incidents are so frequent that we even have a shared photo album titled “The Common Room,” mostly filled with undisclosable pictures of people napping.
A night after a bad math midterm where my roommate and I ordered wings and watched Hamilton, and then roller coaster POV videos until 4 am
Two of my friends after a long day
Our honorary fourth suitemate and common room stuffed animal, Benedict (who my friend left sitting comfortably after staying the night on our couch)
My birthday, when my friends were sweet enough to organize a little get-together
Having a specific place to spend time and have late night conversations with friends, or even just sit in silence to wind down, has been such a source of comfort my sophomore year. I think Yale sometimes felt foreign and scary to me in my first year especially during the first few months, simply because of its unfamiliarity — but I’ve found that time has shifted Yale into a collection of spaces and communities like our common room that feel like home, and I appreciate the people and places that have let it become that way.