Yale University Student Reviews

Academic Life

Yale can be as hard or as easy as you make it - no doubt we have some of the most renowned professors in their respective fields and the resources to match. But at the same time, Yale's Credit/D/Fail systems, residential college seminars, and distributional requirements leave a lot of room for taking fun and/or ridiculously easy classes (of which there are many - you just need to look and ask around - they can also incidentally be the most interesting). Honestly, the hard part is getting in - the rest is up to you. One of the best things about Yale's academic atmosphere is how much students are NOT competitive - your biggest rival will be yourself, which is the by-product of very passionate, self-motivated students learning together. I'm actually surprised at how laid back Yalies tend to be - we leave papers and problem sets to the last minute and have cram sessions the night before an exam, but we get it done and done well. The intensity comes out in intellectual conversations outside of the classroom - laid back can also be coupled with VERY opinionated, which is great if you're into debating. Yale, as with any other ivy, may have a knack with churning out I-bankers like a trade school, but is ultimately still a liberal arts school with even more students after learning for learning's sake and a mind to go into academia.