The blue-collared lower class (2001)

What do you think of freshmen? You have an opinion, I know. Whether you're reminiscing, scorning, recruiting or scoping, frosh interest you because you were once like them.

J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur was once a college man, and he might have asked, "What, then, is the Freshman, this new Yalie?" Freshmen are, in fact, "fresh"--unspoiled, dynamic, naïve, exciting. As prospective Yalies, their high schools worshipped them, threw rose petals at their feet, and named hall monitors after them, but now they are in the process of being humbled by their classmates and bewildered by newfound variety and freedom. We watch with fascination as frosh form new identities while losing their innocence, their umbilical cords, and their livers. (Aside: But they're not losing their keys, you'll notice. One way to spot a freshman these days is to look for the tell-tale blue strap around their necks. It's almost as if they're squirrels in an experiment where biologists radio tag them to keep track. Reminds me of "Running Man.")

Speaking of nosy observers, even more interesting than watching freshmen is watching their parents get through the year. The fun starts during the summer, when the YDN's summer issue ("How to Conform to Our Perception of Yale Life," by People Who Don't Get Out Much) shocks them into making irate phone calls. It continues on Day One, when they complain about the size of the room ("Okay, so this is a nice-sized closet. Why is there a desk in here?").

For the older sibling of a Yale freshman (like me), the fun continues indefinitely after that. "So," Mom asks, "how is he doing? Is he getting enough food? How are his classes? Is he keeping his hair at a reasonable length?" When you're an older sibling, being a spy is part of the job description. If my parents had it their way, I'd be parked in a tree outside Vanderbilt with a pair of binoculars, listening to feed from a wiretap and talking into a cellular phone linked directly to Long Island. But it's worth the extra nagging, because I get to give Brian noogies in public.

LIZ OLINER/YH

Fascinated? By these greenhorn freshmen? I'm exaggerating, you say, because I'm a freshman counselor and an older brother. But admit it, you're intrigued too.

You, too, have read those nostalgiac columns: the writer harkens back to the days where we smilingly asked everyone the "three questions" (name, college and place of origin) and made constant, instant friends. You, too, have heard the snickers poking fun at what seem like more basic questions ("No, this isn't a pizza place...this is the Yale College Dean's Office! Did you mean `Est Est Est'?").

You, too, were once the single guy, making up code names for the cutest of the new crop.

Um, I mean, everyone did that, right? Never mind. (Heather and Adam, edit that part out.) Besides, freshman counselors aren't allowed to think that freshmen are cute. It's in our contract.

Freshman counselors are biased about their charges, of course. Ask the counselors what they think of their frosh, and all of them will invariably say, "I love them. They're awesome. They're so great." I say the same thing, but it never fails to amaze me. I mean, when I was a freshman, I remember there having been many more unlikable people. So where are they this year? Maybe it was just our class. Maybe it takes a few more weeks to develop that obnoxious, arrogant edge (this from a finely honed example).

Maybe being a freshman counselor has given me a better perspective on the freshmen. (I apologize, by the way, to the originator of the hall monitor joke. I know it was some funny dean from training, but I forget whom. Hey--what's a little thieving among friends?) At training they try to tell you everything you can expect from your frosh. Nothing, however, could have prepared me for these gregarious young adults who are building antennae out of coat hangers, stealing wooden signboards from in front of the post office, juggling scimitars and trying to revitalize my college's formerly sagging intramurals. I could go on...my freshmen are just, well...cool. Okay, I admit, they travel in packs and go to lame parties. But face it, you still lose a certain quality when you finish freshman year. You enter sophomore slump because you realize no one thinks you're special anymore. You become leaders of clubs and travel the world as juniors, but by then a class can't say it has much in common. And you end up a senior, looking back at these delightfully drunk freshmen and wishing this wasn't your last year before real life smacks you in the face.

Depressing, isn't it? I am, of course, obscuring the more solemn realities of freshman year. When else could I have run up the phone bills of a long-distance relationship (a mistake, I see, which has not gone out of fashion), faced the Executive Committee, rotted in a flooded, airless Welch basement, and suffered with those arrogant EP&E majors then known as DSers?

The members of the Class of 2001 (my dean calls them the Tricentennials or the Space Odysseuses) have four years here--enough time to learn that in order to capture Yale's spirit at its best and its worst, the jaded upperclassman has to live, to a certain extent, vicariously, through the freshmen. Or, like me, just give them noogies.

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