Last summer I lived among the beautiful buildings of Yale’s campus, but there were still many special parts of the Yale experience that I missed. While the campus is a key part of being a Yale student, there is so much more to it that takes a pause over the summer.
The first thing that I missed was the dining halls. Of course, it is much nicer to not have to do groceries, plan meals, and cook them all yourself every single day, but what I really missed was my residential college dining hall (the best on campus) where my friends and I eat together every night. I also missed just having a wide variety of 14 different beautiful dining halls with great food to choose from every day for all of my meals.
My friends and I at the Morse dining hall!
Perhaps the thing I missed most about Yale even while being on campus was my residential college. Not only did I miss my dorm room, my courtyard, and my library, I also missed living right next to all of the people in my college. The Morse Class of 2025 is lucky because we all lived together in the same few entryways last year and we all live in those same entryways again this year. Every night lots of us crowded into the library for late-night study sessions, and I really missed having that big sense of community right outside the door of my suite.
A bunch of Morsels out to lunch together; a testament to the strength of the residential college communities.
Lastly, one thing that just cannot be captured in the summertime here is Yale events and traditions. Traditions like the Harvard-Yale football game and Spring Fling are some of the best parts of the Yale experience. I really missed seeing the whole Yale community come together to celebrate these big traditions. I also missed more general Yale events like my friends’ orchestra and acapella concerts as well as residential-college specific events like, in my case, Italian Night and Pub Night.
A photo from the First Year Olympics last year, a time-honored Yale tradition.
Spending the summer in New Haven taught me that while I can still enjoy parts of Yale like the beautiful campus, the art galleries, and the amazing restaurants, Yale is fundamentally different without its students. It was so nice to come back to campus and see campus coming alive again.
