Out of the Question for Me
My father went to Yale and my mother grew up in a small town in Minnesota. Both are intellectuals—most birthdays brought books as presents, and regardless of our financial situation I always went to private schools. Education is one of the most dearly held principles in my family. It might be surprising, then, to hear that when I was notified of my admission to Yale, rather than resounding congratulations, both offered an ambivalent, “Oh.” Yes, they were proud, but they had some strong misgivings. My dad went to Yale in the 80s, and my mom’s only impressions of it are through him, which have been further muddied by divorce. He arrived on campus without much family support, and continued through college that way. Much of experience was defined by exclusion on the basis of monetary ability. Although Yale is not the same place it was in the 80s, he was afraid that the prestige of a Yale education was not worth the social cost. My mother comes from a thoroughly middle class background, one generation away from homesteaders in Nebraska. She went to school in Minnesota, and raised me and my younger sibling in Ohio. Not only was Yale faraway and strange, but the only lens she had seen it through was one restrictively defined by class relayed by my dad.
Fortunately, my experience as a white, middle-class woman has not been defined by income as much as my father’s was on the surface. Nonetheless class plays a defining role in our social and academic life at Yale. The first time I realized the full meaning of the Student Income Contribution (SIC) was winter break of my freshman year when I had begun to look forward to summer. Once I began to do the math, I realized that the internships and trips my friends were discussing were out of the question for me. I had to get a job. I was able to do so through Yale, but at the end of a summer living frugally in New Haven and working 40 hours a week on Yale wages, I did not have enough to cover my Student Income Contribution. Fortunately, my family was able to help ends meet. But if a job that Yale presents as a viable summer option for undergraduates fails to meet their standards, then there is a serious flaw in that number.
But even if the SIC is the most visible burden of socioeconomic class at Yale, my everyday experiences have taught me that even if the demographic makeup of Yale has shifted significantly since the 80s, the feeling of exclusion has only appeared in more nuanced ways. The first semester of my freshman year, I began to have conversations about class at Yale. Where many people are uncomfortable discussing their class background, I have the luxury of being white and from an intellectual background. Although economic restrictions define many of my decisions at Yale, the vantage point from which I discuss them is one that dominant, white American culture has defined as respectable. So, I spoke openly. I was in Directed Studies, where with every seminar and conversation with my classmates, I discovered new lacking in cultural capital that I never knew I had. Because of my cultural capital, I gravitated towards people who were intellectual, but it turns out that Yale intellectual is very different from Ohio intellectual.
I gradually “caught up,” but the more I assimilated the more I noticed the need to do so. When I went to visit my grandma, she told me I spoke differently. When I went home for Christmas, I wrote down book titles for charades that I didn’t realize my family wouldn’t know. My way of dressing changed. At Yale, as in most places, the first categorization of someone is based on appearance. Manners of dressing say more about background than almost anything else. But, this also means that if you crack the code you know how to fit in. If you have the “right” shoes and backpack, everything else can be second hand, and is probably cooler if it is. So, I began to crack the code, and began to notice when other people are as well. Sometimes these choices were intentional, and sometimes I made them without thinking, but eventually I stopped pausing to think because sometimes it’s easier not to. However, the trajectory of my process of assimilation was made easier by many things. I already had a base level of cultural capital—it’s cool if your mom is a professor, even if it’s in Toledo—and I was a white, and a woman. All of these things affected how and where I fit in in ways that I don’t know that I could tease out, and frankly, am probably more comfortable not know.
The problem of class at Yale is the problem of consciousness. If you have to ask yourself whether or not you can afford a cup of coffee every day—or once a week—how you move through Yale is different. If you have to weigh a job against working at the YDN, how you move through Yale is different. That is not to say that one way of moving is superior to the other, although one is certainly easier, but it is to say that the person who has to ask that question at all is conscious in a way that others are not. Everyone’s experience at Yale is in some way related to paying the SIC, but some are conscious that it is and others are not. Freshman year, when I tried to talk about class, I felt disruptive and rude. Eventually it became exhausting, and now I don’t have many of those conversations at all. But every time I do, it feels worthwhile. Those conversations were uncomfortable for many, myself included, but they certainly influenced how all of us move through Yale. It is unlikely that Yale will ever become a place that is not defined by class, but by destigmatizing the conversation around it, the difficulties (psychological, social, and monetary) it imposes on some members of our community and not others could hopefully be lightened.
Fortunately, my experience as a white, middle-class woman has not been defined by income as much as my father’s was on the surface. Nonetheless class plays a defining role in our social and academic life at Yale. The first time I realized the full meaning of the Student Income Contribution (SIC) was winter break of my freshman year when I had begun to look forward to summer. Once I began to do the math, I realized that the internships and trips my friends were discussing were out of the question for me. I had to get a job. I was able to do so through Yale, but at the end of a summer living frugally in New Haven and working 40 hours a week on Yale wages, I did not have enough to cover my Student Income Contribution. Fortunately, my family was able to help ends meet. But if a job that Yale presents as a viable summer option for undergraduates fails to meet their standards, then there is a serious flaw in that number.
But even if the SIC is the most visible burden of socioeconomic class at Yale, my everyday experiences have taught me that even if the demographic makeup of Yale has shifted significantly since the 80s, the feeling of exclusion has only appeared in more nuanced ways. The first semester of my freshman year, I began to have conversations about class at Yale. Where many people are uncomfortable discussing their class background, I have the luxury of being white and from an intellectual background. Although economic restrictions define many of my decisions at Yale, the vantage point from which I discuss them is one that dominant, white American culture has defined as respectable. So, I spoke openly. I was in Directed Studies, where with every seminar and conversation with my classmates, I discovered new lacking in cultural capital that I never knew I had. Because of my cultural capital, I gravitated towards people who were intellectual, but it turns out that Yale intellectual is very different from Ohio intellectual.
I gradually “caught up,” but the more I assimilated the more I noticed the need to do so. When I went to visit my grandma, she told me I spoke differently. When I went home for Christmas, I wrote down book titles for charades that I didn’t realize my family wouldn’t know. My way of dressing changed. At Yale, as in most places, the first categorization of someone is based on appearance. Manners of dressing say more about background than almost anything else. But, this also means that if you crack the code you know how to fit in. If you have the “right” shoes and backpack, everything else can be second hand, and is probably cooler if it is. So, I began to crack the code, and began to notice when other people are as well. Sometimes these choices were intentional, and sometimes I made them without thinking, but eventually I stopped pausing to think because sometimes it’s easier not to. However, the trajectory of my process of assimilation was made easier by many things. I already had a base level of cultural capital—it’s cool if your mom is a professor, even if it’s in Toledo—and I was a white, and a woman. All of these things affected how and where I fit in in ways that I don’t know that I could tease out, and frankly, am probably more comfortable not know.
The problem of class at Yale is the problem of consciousness. If you have to ask yourself whether or not you can afford a cup of coffee every day—or once a week—how you move through Yale is different. If you have to weigh a job against working at the YDN, how you move through Yale is different. That is not to say that one way of moving is superior to the other, although one is certainly easier, but it is to say that the person who has to ask that question at all is conscious in a way that others are not. Everyone’s experience at Yale is in some way related to paying the SIC, but some are conscious that it is and others are not. Freshman year, when I tried to talk about class, I felt disruptive and rude. Eventually it became exhausting, and now I don’t have many of those conversations at all. But every time I do, it feels worthwhile. Those conversations were uncomfortable for many, myself included, but they certainly influenced how all of us move through Yale. It is unlikely that Yale will ever become a place that is not defined by class, but by destigmatizing the conversation around it, the difficulties (psychological, social, and monetary) it imposes on some members of our community and not others could hopefully be lightened.
