I owe you all a real entry. Apologies in advance for complaints.
So I've been in New Haven now since August 24 or so. About a month, at any rate. New Haven is about 120K people (2-3x the size of cville) and a lot more urban, though still not that big. I guess I'll start out with some of the basic stuff. There are 99 people in my class, 12 of which are MD/PhD's including me. The medical campus is fairly close to the undergrad campus (10 min walk...comparable to UVA). It's kind've hard to tell you what courses I'm taking since they aren't at standardized times and they're grouped oddly. Roughly, I'm taking biochem, cell biology, physiology, anatomy, a course on professional responsibility, histology, an extended pre-clinical clerkship which teaches us patient skills and such, and a couple different seminars on advanced scientific topics. With the exception of the advanced seminars which are for my PhD, all courses are completely pass/fail as per the "Yale System." On top of that, there's no class ranking, and the only real evaluation we get in terms of being pass/fail is a single final in each class. To be honest I'm having trouble adjusting, not because I can't motivate myself to work but because without quizzes and such I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be absorbing. Thankfully there's an ungraded, voluntary "self-assessment" series in October which should help be calibrate a little. I really love the material. I'm finally taking subjects that I really find interesting without crap like PChem and physics making my life a nightmare. The profs and other assorted faculty have all been super nice and super helpful, which is also great. I think my anatomy prof really likes me, which is good because I want a rec from him for surgery in the future. I've also volunteered to be the student coordinator for MD/PhD interviewees, meaning I'm working with the admissions and the housing people to both host students while theyre interviewing here, helping set up their 2 day interview schedule, and also leading tours and helping host dinners for them. It's been fun. It's nice to be on the other side of that process... I've already done a couple tours. They all seem like nice people.
As for the people that are already here, well, that's a long and interesting story all on its own. We actually just had a presentation yesterday, a retrospective look at this past year in admissions, which was very interesting. The gender ratio for our class is about even with a couple more guys than girls (unlike past years). The class is 30% white and 40% asian, which is funny. The majority of the whites are Jewish, which was not unexpected. I've never been a minority as a white Christian male before. It's rather odd, and yes, somewhat isolating at times in ways I won't go into. I was really surprised how fast I made friends here. Most of my core group are indians, as usual, which is fine. I've been friends with indians for long enough now that I actually get a ton of their inside jokes and cultural references and such. On top of that I have a lot of more peripheral friends that I hang out with in my class a little less frequently. The people are really all just incredible. 56/99 went to ivy league undergrads. Over half have one or two parents that are doctors. The're all brilliant, attractive, athletic (there's one person in 99 that I might sortve kindve maybe call overweight), friendly, rich, etc etc etc, and really, none of them are even arrogant about any of it. Most of you know I have a pretty damn healthy ego, but even I really felt like a loser compared to most of these people when I first showed up. As I mentioned before, they remind me a lot of my HS friends, which is both good and sometimes very bad. I went to an IB magnet high school near a NASA facility. Virtually all of my friends had parents that were either doctors, NASA scientists, college professors, or engineers of some kind. It did leave me with little bit of an inferiority complex since my mother has been unemployed since I was born and since my father just does intel/policy for the AF, which is certainly an intellectual, white-collar job but which I don't get the feeling is all that demanding for him. But that's not really where I was going with that point. They remind me of my HS friends really because they always want to go out and party even when they really should be working, they all love watching and playing sports to death, two things which I have lukewarm feelings for at best, which necessitates more than a little fronting on my part, and they're the type of extroverted, competitive souls that always need to be cracking jokes on each other, jokingly talking shit to each other, etc etc. It ends up leaving me feeling like I've always got to be "on." I always need to be competing for conversational space and superiority, ive always got to be competing at basketball and beer pong and whatever else. I always need to say yes to going out drinking otherwise I fall out of favor. We either go out drinking or stay in and drink at least 4 often 5 nights a week. After four years of being in this group in HS I felt so unbelievably drained, and I was so happy to get away from it and find so many friends in college that didnt make me feel that way. Not everyone here is like the people I just described, but the problem is that that other half dont do anything except stay in their rooms and study seven days a week, and I'd rather have friends that were "too much fun" than no fun at all. There is a small group of quiet, friendly gamers that I hang out with now and then but even they drift pretty close to boring a lot of nights.
I have been trying to fight it by finding groups outside the med school. Fencing doesnt seem to be working out so I've been doing TKD instead. I've only been to 3 practices though, so it's a little early to say much there. As far as the sport goes though, I really like it. So many skills overlap with fencing; it makes me feel like I'm not completely abandoning my old love. I also am kind've part of a group of divinity school kids whom I love to death. They're all much more low-key, love to have long intellectual conversations, are friendly and outgoing without being crazy...just really good people. The only problem is they're clear on the other side of campus (a 30 min walk), and their schedule is radically different from mine, so its very tough to meet up with them. I run into the same old problem I always run into of really being enthusiastic about new friends but being petrified that if I bug them too much about hanging out that I'll just seem like a lonely, desperate, overeager loser whom nobody wants to do anything with. We'll see. I also joined the Hellenic society, which has been interesting to say the least. It's so different from UVA. UVA's has like 10 people, one of which was an international. At Yale, there are like 40 people, and like all but 5 or so are internationals. I mean they're all still really friendly to me, but it's definitely harder to related, especially considering they generally want to speak in Greek, and mine is rusty at best. On top of that, there's something like 3 guys to every girl in the club, and all the girls I've met so far are already dating Greek men, so it's kindve been a wash in that respect as well. It's only the beginning though, so I'm gonna hang in there and keep trying. I'm sure it'll get better as I get to know them all. I think there's a lot of possibilities for fun. They offer modern Greek here as well, and I think I'm going to try and take it during my PhD years.
Went up to Boston a few weeks ago to visit my college friend Caroline. It was nice seeing her again after a couple years. She's a history grad student at Harvard. Harvard (and the town of Cambridge) are really really beautiful. So picturesquely new englandish. Boston is also a fairly cool city, despite it being way smaller than I expected. I think it'll be really great being able to go up there now and then for vacations. I still need to get to NYC and visit my family there, as well as a couple friends who go to grad school at Columbia.
I guess that's the major stuff for now. Hope everyone else is doing well this Fall.
As for the people that are already here, well, that's a long and interesting story all on its own. We actually just had a presentation yesterday, a retrospective look at this past year in admissions, which was very interesting. The gender ratio for our class is about even with a couple more guys than girls (unlike past years). The class is 30% white and 40% asian, which is funny. The majority of the whites are Jewish, which was not unexpected. I've never been a minority as a white Christian male before. It's rather odd, and yes, somewhat isolating at times in ways I won't go into. I was really surprised how fast I made friends here. Most of my core group are indians, as usual, which is fine. I've been friends with indians for long enough now that I actually get a ton of their inside jokes and cultural references and such. On top of that I have a lot of more peripheral friends that I hang out with in my class a little less frequently. The people are really all just incredible. 56/99 went to ivy league undergrads. Over half have one or two parents that are doctors. The're all brilliant, attractive, athletic (there's one person in 99 that I might sortve kindve maybe call overweight), friendly, rich, etc etc etc, and really, none of them are even arrogant about any of it. Most of you know I have a pretty damn healthy ego, but even I really felt like a loser compared to most of these people when I first showed up. As I mentioned before, they remind me a lot of my HS friends, which is both good and sometimes very bad. I went to an IB magnet high school near a NASA facility. Virtually all of my friends had parents that were either doctors, NASA scientists, college professors, or engineers of some kind. It did leave me with little bit of an inferiority complex since my mother has been unemployed since I was born and since my father just does intel/policy for the AF, which is certainly an intellectual, white-collar job but which I don't get the feeling is all that demanding for him. But that's not really where I was going with that point. They remind me of my HS friends really because they always want to go out and party even when they really should be working, they all love watching and playing sports to death, two things which I have lukewarm feelings for at best, which necessitates more than a little fronting on my part, and they're the type of extroverted, competitive souls that always need to be cracking jokes on each other, jokingly talking shit to each other, etc etc. It ends up leaving me feeling like I've always got to be "on." I always need to be competing for conversational space and superiority, ive always got to be competing at basketball and beer pong and whatever else. I always need to say yes to going out drinking otherwise I fall out of favor. We either go out drinking or stay in and drink at least 4 often 5 nights a week. After four years of being in this group in HS I felt so unbelievably drained, and I was so happy to get away from it and find so many friends in college that didnt make me feel that way. Not everyone here is like the people I just described, but the problem is that that other half dont do anything except stay in their rooms and study seven days a week, and I'd rather have friends that were "too much fun" than no fun at all. There is a small group of quiet, friendly gamers that I hang out with now and then but even they drift pretty close to boring a lot of nights.
I have been trying to fight it by finding groups outside the med school. Fencing doesnt seem to be working out so I've been doing TKD instead. I've only been to 3 practices though, so it's a little early to say much there. As far as the sport goes though, I really like it. So many skills overlap with fencing; it makes me feel like I'm not completely abandoning my old love. I also am kind've part of a group of divinity school kids whom I love to death. They're all much more low-key, love to have long intellectual conversations, are friendly and outgoing without being crazy...just really good people. The only problem is they're clear on the other side of campus (a 30 min walk), and their schedule is radically different from mine, so its very tough to meet up with them. I run into the same old problem I always run into of really being enthusiastic about new friends but being petrified that if I bug them too much about hanging out that I'll just seem like a lonely, desperate, overeager loser whom nobody wants to do anything with. We'll see. I also joined the Hellenic society, which has been interesting to say the least. It's so different from UVA. UVA's has like 10 people, one of which was an international. At Yale, there are like 40 people, and like all but 5 or so are internationals. I mean they're all still really friendly to me, but it's definitely harder to related, especially considering they generally want to speak in Greek, and mine is rusty at best. On top of that, there's something like 3 guys to every girl in the club, and all the girls I've met so far are already dating Greek men, so it's kindve been a wash in that respect as well. It's only the beginning though, so I'm gonna hang in there and keep trying. I'm sure it'll get better as I get to know them all. I think there's a lot of possibilities for fun. They offer modern Greek here as well, and I think I'm going to try and take it during my PhD years.
Went up to Boston a few weeks ago to visit my college friend Caroline. It was nice seeing her again after a couple years. She's a history grad student at Harvard. Harvard (and the town of Cambridge) are really really beautiful. So picturesquely new englandish. Boston is also a fairly cool city, despite it being way smaller than I expected. I think it'll be really great being able to go up there now and then for vacations. I still need to get to NYC and visit my family there, as well as a couple friends who go to grad school at Columbia.
I guess that's the major stuff for now. Hope everyone else is doing well this Fall.