An Iconic Institution: Yale University

Yale is one of the eight Ivy League Schools, known because of their prestige and the simple fact that all eight of these schools are some, if not the most, highly sought after schools in the country. On our trip to Brown University this summer we will also be visiting 5 other schools before we start our classes. Out of the five, three of them are Ivy's in the forms of Harvard, Dartmouth, and Yale. The other two colleges are no walk in the park either as they are MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Brandeis University. Since there are five members of our cohort we were each assigned a school to talk about, and I chose Yale.

Sterling Library at Yale, opened in April 1931

Yale was founded in 1701 originally funded by a charter from Britain to help educate the colonists in the arts and sciences to be ready for both church and civil service. It was named Yale College in 1718 after Elihu Yale, who donated all the money from his merchant's sales to the school. Not much happened over the next 90 years but it grew rapidly until in 1810 the Yale School of Medicine was chartered. After that they started to grow at an exponential rate with the openings of the Divinity School in 1822, the Law School 1824, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 1847, multiple Schools of Art in 1869, the School of music in 1894, the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies in 1900, the School of Nursing in 1923, the School of Drama in 1955, the School of Architecture in 1972, and finally the School of Management in 1974.

Some facts that I found really cool about Yale was that they were the school that awarded the first Ph.D. ever in the United States. It also began admitting women as graduates as early as 1869, even though women weren't accepted at the undergraduate level until a century later in 1969. Even the first Chinese citizen to earn a degree in the U.S. attended Yale. As you can see they have a very impressive background, but what's even more impressive is how they've kept improving it over the years and what it's like now.

Using much influence from worldly colleges such as Oxford and Cambridge, Yale decided to use Residential Colleges as a form of housing and to create a more tightly knight sense of community at their school. These Residential Colleges split up the school population into twelve different colleges within Yale of about 450 students each. All of the colleges have many amazing features such as libraries, gyms, common rooms, game rooms, dining halls, and even their own administrative staff! 

Before I accepted this assignment I didn't really know anything about Yale except for what I had heard from friends and family. My brother told me it was the most amazing school he'd visited and he wished he could go their while a few of my friends commented on it with some less than satisfactory remarks. I didn't really know which way to look until my chaperone suggested that I watch a video on YouTube called "Why I Chose Yale." All I have to say is that after watching that video I was definitely enticed as to research more on the school. I suggest that you all take a look at it as it's very well done and may give you just a glimpse about what a top University has to offer.

Well there isn't really much more to say as the video I suggested will really speak for itself. It's been a long day and I'm going on a French field trip to the Legion of Honor Museum tomorrow to look at an Impressionist exhibit so I should really be headed off to bed. And I even have an hour to spare before this blog is due! What a relief! Time to just close my eyes... for just for a second... Whoa! Note to self: Don't fall asleep at crucial times. Signing off for the night. Jusqu'a la prochaine fois!