You're finally at Yale! Now what do you do?

You arrive in New Haven at 9 a.m. after a day of driving, exhausted and anxiety-ridden. Your parents promptly unload all of your worldly possessions into your disturbingly naked common room, swing by Staples to buy the trash can and desk lamp that you forgot to pack, and bid you a tearful but speedy farewell. Faster than you can say "Bulldog Days," you've been cut loose, left on your own to explore all that Yale has to offer. Chances are, you're eager at the prospect, yet wary of the other freshmen—or, more specifically, what those freshmen will think of you.

COURTESY YALE COLLEGE PUBLISHING OFFICE This calendar contains valuable information for those first days.

Yes, the opening days can be overwhelming. An almost mind-blowing barrage of orientation activities and seemingly important information is hurled at you by the Yale Administration, student groups, academic departments, and your fellow freshmen. Before you know it, though, classes will have started and you'll be in much better shape if you have taken full advantage of your first two weeks on campus.

During the first few days, you'll be spending most of your time settling in and tying up loose ends. After receiving their telecommunications packages, many freshmen realize that they do not possess the Ethernet cards or cables necessary to take advantage of Yale's ultra-fast Internet connection. Those items can be purchased from Yale's Microcomputer Sales Center, but for other sundries that you accidentally left at home, try the K-Mart at the Connecticut Post Mall in Milford or the Staples on Whalley Avenue.

Once your room attains some semblance of order, it's time to explore the activities of the opening days. Yale publishes a calendar that will prove extremely useful to the average clueless freshman. In fact, if you're like me and your parents leave after three hours, this small booklet may become your closest friend. The calendar lists a variety of Yale-sponsored events, such as tours, receptions, meetings, and placement exams.

You should also take a tour of the libraries, because you will find yourself studying in Sterling Memorial Library or Cross Campus Library at least once during your freshman year. You might pick up some cool facts about Yale architecture along the way—always useful for impressing visitors later in your Yale career.

While the various panel discussions on topics such as "Education and the Residential Colleges" may appeal to your parents, you'll probably find yourself more inclined to visit activities like the Freshman Bazaar, where you can learn about almost all the student-run activities at Yale. You don't need to have a shopping list of activities to investigate. In fact, the best strategy may just be to go in with an open mind, an idea of how much time you'll have to devote to extracurriculars, and some wariness of the question, "Do you know how to sing?" A good strategy is to sign up for every activity that appeals to you—you'll just be added to a bunch of e-mail lists, and you can always ask to be taken off later.

Along more academic lines, the opening weeks are a time filled with placement exams, course pre-registration, and departmental propaganda. For many of the courses intended primarily for freshmen, such as English and math, students must pre-register to be placed in the appropriate level. In addition, students interested in chemistry must take an exam and specify whether they wish to be placed in Chemistry 113, 114, 118, or 125, Freshman Organic Chemistry.

It's also important not to forget your foreign language requirement. If you got a 4 or 5 on the AP in high school, you're fine—otherwise, you will need to reach "intermediate proficiency" in a language at Yale. If you've had some training in a foreign language already but don't have an AP credit, you should take the placement exam at the beginning of the year; you may be able to place out of your requirement, or, if you want to go farther with your language, you may be placed in a higher-level course.

In selecting your courses, bear in mind that you can take a maximum of four courses Credit/D/Fail during your Yale career. The Cr/D/F option, a variant of the more familiar Pass/Fail system, allows you to take classes for which you don't really want to stress about your grades. You can change from Cr/D/F to a letter grade until midway through the semester. Just remember that, in most cases, you can't take courses that count for your major Cr/D/F, and you still have to put in enough work to avoid a D or F in the class.

You should also remember that while Yale does not have any required courses, it does impose distributional requirements to ensure that students are exposed to a variety of disciplines. The requirements for freshman year are fairly simple to fulfill: two credits in Group I or II (language and humanities) and two in Groups III or IV (social and hard sciences).

Sophomores, however, must have at least two credits in each of the four distributional groups by the end of the year, so it's not a good idea to specialize in one group too early. By graduation time, each student needs to have taken 12 courses outside the distributional group of his or her chosen major.

Above all, relax! Everyone will end up with a decent schedule, but not everyone will get as much out of the opening days as possible. Take some time to look around, get a feel for your fellow students, and take advantage of the energy and enthusiasm of the campus. If you dive right in, you'll undoubtedly find it was worth the plunge.

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