“Wise Wasian Women Give You Life Advice” is a biweekly column by Irene Kim and Josephine Buruma, where they review—and advise on—the many troubles of first-year life. Read to reminisce, commiserate, and seek enlightenment. Reach out to them with your issues, qualms, and general maladies at irene.kim.irk24@yale.edu and josephine.buruma@yale.edu!
No Pre-Frosh Left Behind…
Feeling astray! I arrived a day late and missed the codependent friend group formation stage of Bulldog Days. What am I to do without the endless stream of digicam photos to prove I was here? Am I socially doomed here?
Take it from us, these do not last. We do not deny that you’ll likely meet people who, for better or for worse, will stay with you for a long time. But perhaps the hodge-podge group you form in the Silliman buttery on night two will not become the ten-person trip you take to Puerto Rico in senior year, and we say that that is more than okay. Do you really want to be able to trace all of your college friendships back to your pre-frosh anxiety of eating alone in Commons? Here, we prescribe a gentle dose of not worrying about this whatsoever.
Sparks Fly…
Confused—I come from an all-girls Catholic high school, and between the co-ed bathrooms, lack of rules, and what seems like a two-day bout of total freedom and little responsibility, I’m beginning to feel a budding attraction for the opposite sex. Do I pursue these feelings? Where can a girl find the time to have a private moment here?
We promise you, your love is likely not sat across the table from you at the Timothy Dwight lettuce-eating competition. There’s a reason they have you sleeping on the floor. And if a spark is truly felt, you have the next four years to pursue it. We suggest you reserve this weekend for more individual pursuits—plus, he always might choose Harvard in the end.
Missed the Moncler Memo…
Like a sore thumb! As soon as I stepped off the van from Laguardia, a sea of navy, white, and blue bombarded me in a very bad way. It feels like everyone here was privy to a larger meeting on collegiate dress code. I feel like a big fish out of water—where is my small, unfashionable pond?
Don’t fret! Although the proliferation of navy Longchamps upon reaching these ivy-covered walls may evoke a slightly Orwellian image, the Yale outfit is only as prescriptive as you make it. There is no need to feel threatened by the dominance of dark wash jeans, red Mary Janes, and tasteful gold jewelry; it is more insignificant than it seems. And we promise, few will remember the clothes you donned during what will ultimately be a rather unimportant few days in the grander scale of your life. After all, what is the summer before freshman year for if not total self-reinvention? Bulldog Days will soon be but a blip. However, we would be remiss not to warn you of the similarly consuming sea of trenchcoats that emerge in the winter…
To Bulldog or Not to Bulldog…
Help! I’m deciding between Yale and a few other colleges. My life as of late has seemed an endless stream of admitted students weekends—and to be perfectly honest, all of the gothic architecture and talks of tight-knit undergraduate communities are beginning to blend together. I think my heart is in Yale, but, come May 1, how can I be sure I’m making a decision I won’t regret?
We were in your shoes once. Platitudes and puns aside, we’ll end this column and year on a more authentic note: there’s no way to know you won’t come to regret your decision. But the information that would let you know that your choice was right or wrong—the people you will meet, the friends you’ll make, the professors who will mentor you, the many, many things that will go poorly and the more that will go well—is unavailable to you. There’s only so much you can gauge from two days of propagandistic messaging when you’re already running low on sleep from nights in a sleeping bag on a common room couch. To return to our platitudes: trust your instincts—there is no wrong answer. And if there is, you didn’t know, and you couldn’t have known. This place has meant a good deal of different things to many people, and it may mean something completely different to you. We suggest that wherever you go, you embrace it wildly and without hesitation—and we hope that you can give grace to the person you once were.