Finding a home in Yale's residential colleges

FABIÁN E. ROSADO/YH The residential courtyard is a great place to relax.

By Brian Ledbetter

During the summer, it's the question that plagues incoming Yale freshmen every day: "Wait, where exactly are you going to school?" The response seems elusive at first. Yale University? Yale College? Saybrook College?

"Uh, Yale?" That was my answer. And though I was still confused about the college vs. university bit, a letter from the Master of "my college" made things a little clearer.

"Dear Saybrugian," is how the letter began. It went on to describe the attributes of Saybrook College: the squash courts, two courtyards, dining hall, and outdoor basketball court. But I decided that I would have to see "my college" in person, and for the time being, I just stuck with answering "Uh, Yale?"

When I arrived in New Haven, the daily question changed. It became the more casual "Hey, what college are you in?" This time, I found the answer in the writing on the wall, or rather on the giant spray-painted bedsheet that was hanging outside my Wright Hall room: "Saybrook." That sheet identified me, and about 100 others, as Saybrugians--as opposed to Stilesians, Trumbullians, Sillimanders, and the rest of Yale. I was housed with my classmates on Old Campus in Lanman-Wright Hall, across the street from Saybrook College itself, where the upperclass Saybrugians lived.

At first, I was skeptical as to how we could all be randomly dropped into these residential colleges. I feared that each of the colleges had some stereotype, and that their members would be expected to contribute to those images. Maybe Saybrook would be a colony of black-clad, cigarette-smoking sullens entombed in nothing but philosophy. Or maybe it would be party central; even if I did want to study, there would be no chance to because of the perpetual flow of alcohol in a year-long, delirious extravaganza. Through no choice of my own, I would be subject to one of these identities.

Nothing could have been further from the truth. Saybrook has a wide spectrum of people: magazine editors, varsity athletes, prize-winning scholars, musicians, political leaders, and environmental activists. On any night, while the parties are raging and the beer is flowing, the college library is also full.

It didn't take long for me to realize that this residential college business meant more than just the dorm in which I lived. Intramural sports, Naples Nights, and study breaks became familiar events designed for intra-college bonding. As Saybrugians, we were not just students at Yale, but also members of the Saybrook family.

Despite all this intense bonding with members of my college, I still have many friends in all the other residential colleges. But whether I'm eating with my friends in Commons, volunteering with them at the hospital, or taking a class with them, we all still seem to bring a little bit of our colleges with us wherever we go.

No one in Saybrook spends every moment there, and that's not what is expected. Saybrook is our home base in the wilderness of Yale. While many Saybrugians move off-campus and keep a safe distance between themselves and the Gothic walls of Yale, they are still hopelessly tied to the rest of us.

My college is two things to me: the building in which I live and a part of who I am at Yale. I am a Saybrugian. When we enter Yale as freshmen, the residential colleges allow us to stand and proclaim our identity from a rooted spot. For the next four years, we cheer together at football games as part of a college section, party together in the college hot spot, study together in the college library, and make our dorm into a place we can call home.

My residential college is everything that I have made it, and nothing that I didn't want it to be.

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