Class mobility: your future at Yale

The World According to Carp
    By Benjamin Carp

It's a good week to think about next year. Spring break is over and the year is winding down. Room draw is underway, underclassmen are envisioning another year of The Yale Experience, and seniors are counting the days to graduation. So here's a little primer on what everyone can expect, with my usual patented amount of exaggeration, generalization, and grammatical distortion.

Freshmen will be giving up their counselors, their support network, their keg restrictions, their nice Old Campus rooms, and their comfortable distance from the dean and master. (Residents in the two suburban colleges are exceptions from the latter two, but I don't really care about them, and neither should you.) Their cluelessness will no longer be tolerated--whatever innocence or physical attractiveness they once possessed will now be covered by a sheen of New Haven axle grease and a benumbed self-confidence. In other words, they are ready to enter the sophomore slump.

So, future sophomores: neither professors, nor administrators, nor fellow students (even in your own class) will care about you. Your happy traipsing through gut courses (that includes DS) will end with the slow realization that you have to choose a major. You will suck. Your lot will be somewhat improved by the fact that you will have actually chosen your roommates (although I guarantee that most sophomore rooms end up regretting their decisions), and that you can now go to meals in your PJs. But, in general, the Neverland that the tour guides pitched is almost at its end--enjoy your freshman follies while you still can.

Sophomores, on the other hand, are bringing this somewhat sour chapter to a close. Cliques have been firmly solidified, you probably have a general idea of what you want to study here, you've found some sort of extra-curricular niche, and you may even have plans (if you're smart) to go abroad or take a leave of absence next year. You can look forward to a somewhat variable and uncertain year, where a third of your friends will be the president/editor/pitch/captain/janitor of the Yale Intramural Frogball Journal, a third will be away from Connecticut doing something more exciting than you, and the other third will just be marking time. Of the two-thirds still in New Haven, half will be annexed and half will be off campus. It's a strange year, but it can be extremely worthwhile if you do it right.

Juniors mistakenly believe that they should be excited about next year. They are psyched to live in guaranteed singles, they are ready to take the reins of Yale from the Class of '98, and they are more than ready to turn 21.

Allow me to shatter some of your illusions. You will be pissed off that you still have to fulfill that annoying distributional requirement. You will spend an enormous portion of your time either pursuing a post-graduation job/education or panicking that you haven't got one. And if you have a huge senior project, well, have fun ("How I spent my last Spring Break..."). Meanwhile, ladies, if you've already eliminated all possibility of dating someone in your own class, then you'll have your pick of the lowly underclassmen (senior men, of course, don't mind this at all). Future seniors, enjoy the spacious living, enjoy the ease with which you get into chosen seminars, and enjoy the scattered senior events. But most of all, enjoy the bars...as often as you can.

And as for my own classmates? Four categories:

1. People who know exactly what they're doing next year. Everyone else hates these people. If you see anyone face down on Elm Street with a brick jutting out of his or her skull, chances are it's one of these seniors.

2. People who know they're doing something, but are still deciding where to do it--seniors in a comfy limbo.

3. People who are scrounging around for something to do next year, and have no "comfy" cushion. Hopefully they're not trying to finish (or start) their senior essay at the same time. When in doubt, get on the web and send out another résumé.

4. People who have no clue, and just don't care--you're an adult looking forward to waiting on tables or to "Junior, pick your socks up off the floor and come downstairs for breakfast!"

Meanwhile, your sophomore girlfriend of two months is starting to wonder "where this relationship is heading," Dead Week plans are being finalized, senior essay deadlines are drawing near, and the frenzied need to soak up the last bits of The Yale Experience will only get more intense (either that, or you can't wait to finally get out of this place). My only advice is to avoid talking to your parents as much as possible.

Given these four years of Yale, a prefrosh might wonder why so many of us have had such a great time. The short answer is, we're not at Harvard. A slightly longer answer might be that despite the stress, the bureaucracy, the grime, the forced humility, the torpid dating scene, and the recurring confrontations with the Spectre of Real Life, there is no better place on Earth to enrich yourself socially, intellectually, and culturally. Seniors look unhappy only because they know that Yale has been an unbeatable experience...but they also know that this experience has prepared them well for a great future.

Still, that doesn't mean I'll donate any more money.

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