College Perks not open to all Yalies

To many freshmen at Yale, the inequalities in the residential college system are hardly the subject of fervent debate. Yes, Calhoun lacks a made-to-order bar in the dining hall and Berkeley has a basketball court, but these material concerns seem petty when homeless people beg us to buy flowers outside Au Bon Pain. That the rooms in Davenport and Pierson are bigger than those in Jonathan Edwards seems to matter just a bit less.

HYORIM SUH/YH The Morse recording studio is one of many well-kept college secrets.

And the fact that no college is the same in the facilities it offers makes each college unique and lovable in its own separate way. All in all, does it matter so much that the quality of life in the colleges is so disparate? In a word, yes.

Though I could care less if some colleges have bigger rooms than others—after all, perfect equality in this matter would require a boring uniformity—there is no satisfactory reason for students to be discouraged from utilizing the facilities of other colleges. Why, for instance, do we have all these special keys? Why is it that students can't use the facilities outside their residential college without a friend from that college to let them in? Branford is not a separate nation from Stiles; we all go to Yale, and considering the price we pay to be here, such restrictions seem ridiculous.

On the other hand, this system forces a sense of college loyalty. Students are less likely to go to a foreign college that won't let outsiders eat dinner there at certain hours, or one that makes it difficult to use its studios. As a result, students within the residential college unwittingly create an internally isolated family of 18-to-21-year-olds who spend a significant part of their days with each other.

So how to overcome these problems? Well, for many of the facilities in the residential colleges, all students, no matter where they live, must go to the Master's Office to "rent" a key to use these facilities. But this relatively unknown ease of accessibility does not exist in every circumstance. Berkeley's facilities, including the library, require a Berkeley resident's ID card to enter, and the Calhoun sauna seems to be mostly, if not solely, for the use of Calhoun residents. Also, advertising is low. How many people outside Silliman know that the college has a climbing wall and a drum set? Still, while the feeling persists that the colleges are hush-hush about their various attributes, the consensus remains the same: there are worse hardships than not getting everything you want.

We all pay the same amount to go here (well, to an extent), and we all are equally subject to the random selection process when being chosen for our residential colleges (again, for the most part). Yeah, so I have no shot at one of the infamous "princess suites" completely unknown to Calhoun, but there is always the dream of Bookworld.

Whether the disparities among the colleges are intended or not, and whether our restricted admission to the other colleges' facilities is a matter of security or secret-society imitation, I admit that I'm satisfied overall. Even though JE sux, and even though more access throughout the colleges will improve the situation, Yale students as a whole have it pretty darn good. If you don't believe me, just go check out Harvard sometime.

Katherine Stevens is a freshman in Calhoun.

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