Freshman Year
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Freshmen are required to live on campus and, with the assignment of a residential college affiliation over the summer, become part of a community as soon as they reach campus. Freshmen from each residential college live together, take many of their meals in the college's dining hall, and meet and consult with advisers affiliated with their college. Upperclass students welcome the freshmen into their college community even though most freshmen do not actually move into their residential colleges until sophomore year; freshmen from ten of the twelve colleges live together on Old Campus, a quadrangle of Victorian Gothic Revival dormitories enclosing two acres at the center of campus. Students are grouped in residences by college affiliation, but the short distance between neighbors and a shared courtyard make it easy to meet people from every college. Exceptions to this are those freshmen assigned to Timothy Dwight and Silliman, who live in their respective colleges with upperclass students and develop an intense, early bond with their colleges. Most freshmen, no matter what their college, eat breakfast and lunch in Commons, a dining hall large enough to accommodate the whole class. |
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Freshman-year roommates are assigned by the individual college deans with two considerations in mind: compatibility and diversity. Freshmen live on single-sex floors, in single-sex suites made up of a common living room with attached bedrooms that accommodate between four and six freshmen. While students are matched based on general living habits, they should look forward to encountering a slice of Yale's diversity in their suites. After freshman year, students choose their roommates and obtain rooms through lotteries held by their colleges.
Yale has long recognized that freshmen have special needs: for social and academic orientation, for the chance to meet and share experiences with other freshmen, and for counseling and other support services. Several optional preorientation programs are offered for those who wish to participate: the Dwight Hall Freshperson Conference; Freshman Outdoor Orientation Trips (FOOT); Cultural Connections, the week-long orientation program for minority students; and Orientation for International Students (OIS). All freshmen begin their life on campus with a five-day required orientation session. They meet with their freshman counselors and faculty advisers, plan and preregister for certain courses, and have an opportunity to spend time with classmates before the fall term commences.
Each freshman is assigned a faculty adviser who is a fellow of his or her residential college. Freshmen meet with faculty advisers before classes begin to discuss general academic plans and to chart a course of study for the year. These advisers are also available throughout the year to discuss progress and plans. They are knowledgeable and interested and can answer many questions that might arise.
A central figure in the lives of freshmen is the freshman counselor, a senior who lives in the entryway with his or her counselees. Somewhat like an older sibling or friend, counselors know the school and can help with course selection, personal concerns, and general orientation to life at Yale and in New Haven. While these counselors provide advice to all freshmen, minority students may also seek counseling from any of the selected African American, Asian American, and Latino Ethnic counselors who serve as additional resources. Most of the residential colleges have also established Big Sib programs in which upperclassmen volunteer to welcome the college's freshmen and introduce them to the social and extracurricular aspects of residential college life.
