A Day at Yale University with Vivian

What does a normal day look like as an undergraduate student at Yale University?

In this blog post, you’ll be taken through a typical Monday in my life as a junior at Yale University. As a junior at Yale majoring in Ethics, Politics, and Economics as well as Statistics and Data Science, my days can get quite busy but are always fruitful!

Starting My Day

I begin my day at around 8 am with a beautiful view of the Silliman College courtyard. At Yale, each student is assigned to a residential college (dormitory) where they will reside for four years. I was assigned to Silliman College, which is right in the heart of Yale. Each residential college is well equipped with various amenities, including its own dining hall, a gym, a basketball court, and a library.

As soon as I get out of bed, I wash my face, quickly complete my skincare routine, get dressed, and walk across the courtyard to the Silliman dining hall, which serves hot breakfast daily from 7 am to 11 am. I normally serve myself avocado toast, a smoothie bowl, potato hash, a Beyond Meat sausage from the hot foods section, and some cereal to stay fueled up for the rest of my day. I eat gluten-free and pescatarian and am super grateful that Yale has plentiful options for people with dietary restrictions. During breakfast, I complete my daily tasks for the political media internship I am currently working on. This work is part-time and only takes a few hours a day, but it is a great way to get a few extra dollars to spend on books and weekend eating, and more importantly, it’s a great opportunity to gain experience in the political media world that I one day hope to work in.

My first class of the day is at 10:30 am in the Watson Center, which is about a ten-minute walk from my dorm. My first class is the Logic of Randomized Political Experiments, which is a data science class that introduces students to the intricacies of proper research design methods in political science literature and encourages students to produce their own findings in a cumulative final project. This class counts toward the Major in Statistics and Data Science. Since this class is one of the higher-level courses in the political science and data science departments, it has around 20 people. The class takes place in a very small lecture space to allow for collaborative learning while still making it easy for the professor to compute probabilities and statistical calculations on the blackboard. I use my laptop in this class so that I can follow along with the coding tutorials in the programming language R that the professor demonstrates.

After my first class is over, I’ll stop by the Bowow. The Bowow is Yale operated convenience store right near my residential college that offers a wide array of items, including but not limited to, fresh sushi, ice cream, school supplies, and iced teas for students to apply their lunch dining swipe to. I normally use my meal swipe to buy an order of Spicy Tuna Rolls that I’ll eat outside of my second class before it begins since my second class of the day is only 15 minutes after my first class. 

My second class of the day is called the Racial and Cultural Histories of Mental Health. It is a small seminar with around 13 people. The class does not count towards my major or my certificate, but thankfully I have room in my schedule so that each semester I can take one or two courses that don’t count for my major requirements without falling behind. This week we are discussing the history of eugenics in the United States as it relates to race and economic class. 

After my second class is over, I normally go to the Acorn to study. The Acorn is a student-run coffee shop, a floor above the dining hall. Since the Acorn is student-run, the pricing for the coffee tends to be much cheaper and, in my opinion, much better quality since the students working there are most of the time are my close friends who try to impress me with their barista skills. Acorn is my favorite place to get work done and has a lively ambiance, even amidst finals season. 

Afternoon Festivities

In the afternoon, once my lunch has settled in, I normally will run a 5k on the Canal Trail, which is a running trail that spans from New Haven, Connecticut, where Yale is located, to Northhampton, Massachusetts. The trail is very easy to run along and is quite peaceful. During the fall and late spring, the flowers on the trees along the trail are all shades of red, orange, and purple. After a long day of classes and a few hours of working on assignments, running helps me reorient myself mentally before the rest of my day. Fall and spring are the best times to run outside, but when it’s too cold to run outside, I will instead opt for a cycling workout at Payne Whitney Gym, Yale’s central and biggest gym. After I work out, I will usually shower and go to the Yale Law Library, where I work as a Library Assistant. As a Library Assistant, I check people into the library, but most of the time, I’m really fortunate to get to read and study in-between times when people enter the library.  

Dinner Shenanigans

After my shift, I’ll go to dinner with my friends who live in another residential college. The walk to Pierson College, where my closest friends live, is around 0.5 miles. For dinner, I’ll eat gluten-free Pesto pasta along with a side of Ceasar salad. Dinner time is my favorite time of the day since I get to catch up with friends and debrief my day before Yale’s nighttime extracurricular and academic activities begin. After dinner, I’ll attend my Intermediate Microeconomics section at 7 pm in Sterling Memorial Library. A section is an approximately one-hour block every week where a Teaching Fellows will provide extra guidance to students who are taking lectures with 50+ people. A Teaching Fellow is normally a Yale graduate student who specializes in the course material and who acts as a resource in classes where it might be difficult for students to have ample one-on-one opportunities to ask the professor questions about the course material. A section generally consists of Teaching Fellows providing a short 20-minute review of the last week’s material and using the remaining 40 minutes to work through problems with a group of around 10 students. 

After Section, I will make myself an iced chai latte using materials in my room’s freezer and meet my friends at a library to study. My second favorite place to study is the Digital Humanities Library in the Sterling Memorial Library. The Digital Humanities Library is one of the few places in the Sterling Memorial Library where low volume talking is allowed, which is ideal, granted that much of the data science work that I do is collaborative. I also really enjoy how many books there are in the Digital Humanities Library pertaining to the ways that data analytics and information technology intersect with feminism. After a couple of hours of studying, I’ll head to the Silliman Buttery. A buttery is a late-night cafe that serves food and snacks for Yale college students. Each residential college has its own buttery where students within that residential college work. A few of my friends work at the Buttery so it’s always fun to keep them company by studying near them as they work. I’m a big fan of late-night snacking, so I’ll usually grab a smoothie and quesadilla to finish off the night. Normally my friends and I will also play video games in the buttery before heading back to our dorms to go to bed at around 1 am, which is when the Siliman Buttery closes. Yale is a very busy place, but in between all of the classes and studying, there are ample opportunities to hang out with friends and relax. Being at Yale surrounded by people who are as good-spirited as they are hard-working makes the work fly by.

Written by Vivian Vasquez, PathIvy Yale University Ambassador