The desks in Sterling’s stacks are not pristine. They are not modern. They are not especially ergonomic. But they are steady. They’ve held thousands of elbows and crumpled outlines, coffee rings and half-drafted thoughts. And if you look closely—beneath the fluorescent light and between the typed pages—you’ll find something else.
Scrawled in pen or etched into the underside of desk ledges, Yale students have left behind a record. Not official, not curated, not in any archive—but all the more intimate for that. Little messages. Unfinished jokes. Vague cries for help. Phone numbers from 2015. Religious symbols. Bad poetry. Good poetry. Words written not to endure, but somehow still here.
One in particular, at the back of a carrel deep in the stacks, reads:
“Prayed to St. Aquinas for science help. 11/2/24.”
It’s written in careful black ink. The date is recent. The sentiment is earnest. There’s something vulnerable in it—something soft. You don’t know who wrote it, but you know what they felt. You know what it is to ask for help into silence and hope that the silence hears you.
And that’s what all these messages carry. They’re not just decoration or distraction. They’re traces. Reminders that you’re not the first person to sit here wondering how to finish a thesis, or whether the page you’re writing even matters. The walls of these desks hold fragments of people doing exactly what you’re doing: trying to get through.
Some notes are straightforward:
“Lock in.”
“Need Red Bull.”
“How am I going to finish my thesis?”
Others are surprisingly tender:
“You’re doing great.”
“You are already here.”
“Look up and around you—West Rock is glowing.”
And some are cryptic, like overhearing a line of someone else’s dream:
“I am the Jesus of Suburbia.”
“Sterling smells like dreams and despair.”
“Sometimes I come here just to remember I made it.”
Even when they’re strange, they’re strangely moving. Because the real message beneath them all is the same: someone else has been here. Sat where you’re sitting. Felt what you’re feeling. Pushed through.
In a university that often feels immaculately structured—where history is bound in books and authority carved into buildings—these notes feel radically human. They’re raw and a little messy. They aren’t trying to be profound. But that’s exactly what gives them their weight.
They remind us that Yale is not just a place of rigor, but of rhythm—one person after another showing up, breaking down, starting again. These notes are what remains when the lecture ends and the deadline looms and all that’s left is you, your computer, and the faint sense that you can’t do it. Until someone else’s words remind you: maybe you can.
Some of the messages are funny. Some are sad. Some are oddly specific.
“Don’t take Intro Chem and Modern British Lit at the same time.”
“Tell her you miss her.”
“4/15/21 – Still here. Barely.”
You can trace the outlines of burnout, of belief, of ambition and ambivalence—all pressed quietly into the walls. It’s not unlike prayer, really—not in the theological sense, but in the reaching. The impulse to send something out beyond yourself. A sentence left behind in case someone else might need it.
I don’t think people write on these desks because they want to vandalize them. I think they write because they want to be heard—by someone, someday, even if they’re not sure who. Maybe just by the next person trying to survive a Tuesday.
So what do you do when you read one?
Maybe nothing. Maybe you smile, shift in your seat, and keep typing. Or maybe you respond. Leave a note of your own.
“You’ve done harder things than this.”
“Trust that it matters.”
“You are more than this paper.”
“Be proud of how far you’ve come.”
It doesn’t have to be profound. Just honest. Just true enough that it might steady someone else.
That’s the quiet beauty of these stacks. They’re filled with books, yes—but also with signs that students have been here before you, and will come after you, and somehow, across the distance, we can still reach each other. Not through lectures or readings or polished final drafts, but through the simple, stubborn act of continuing. Of writing one more line. Of staying.
And this is part of what makes Yale different.
At its core, Yale is an institution of shared learning—of collaborative knowledge-making that transcends the boundaries of time and discipline. It isn’t just a place where smart people come to think in parallel; it’s a place where we are asked, again and again, to think with each other. To respond, to extend, to annotate the margins of another student’s insight. You feel it in seminar rooms. You feel it in the editing bay. You feel it in the stacks, too—on the literal walls of learning, where students write not for credit or recognition, but for connection.
That is Yale’s quiet brilliance. Not just its excellence, but its collectivity. Its epistemology is built communally: person to person, thought to thought, message to message. The very culture of learning here is steeped in the idea that knowledge is never truly owned—it is made and remade in relation, offered and inherited and re-offered again. It’s what sets this place apart—not just from peer institutions, but from the competitive impulse that so often shadows them. Yale doesn’t only celebrate the brilliance of individuals. It invites us to become brilliant together.
That’s why the notes matter. They are part of this shared epistemic. Scrawled in ink, but holding the same spirit that animates every collaborative problem set, every late-night conversation, every “can I run this idea by you?” whispered in the hallway. They remind us that we are not here to build something alone—we are here to build something enduring, together.
So the next time you’re deep in the stacks—tired, overwhelmed, wondering if this is worth it—look down. Someone may have left you a message. And it might be just enough to keep you going.
And maybe you’ll leave something, too. Not just for yourself, but for whoever comes next. A small inheritance. A quiet offering. A reminder that Yale is not just a place where we learn—but a place where we remind each other how.
