Second year MIS-IHP student Barbara Martin sends a note on her exchange semester at Yale:
"While my fellow graduate students are either discovering an exciting new life in our renowned “Genève Internationale”, or slowly (reluctantly?) settling back into a familiar academic setting, I find myself among the “happy few” who will be abroad this semester.
Tokyo, Singapore, Paris, Seoul, Washington, Boston… Some of us are now half a world away, experimenting life in a new environment, sometimes disorienting at first. This is an experience many of you will now be familiar with, for you come from the most varied horizons. Cultural shock is a notion most of us have personally experienced. So had I. I had lived in Ireland and in Russia, and overcome the rainy Irish winter and the rudeness of Russian bureaucrats. But every new country represents a new challenge, no matter how deceivingly “familiar” its culture can seem.
And so I embarked on a my first trip to the United States of America, this mythical land of wonders most Europeans unavowedly dream of. My destination was not a city, but a simple name, crystal-clear and exhaling a legendary scent: Yale!
And yet the place I came to was no fantasy, no fabulous realm of higher learning but an (almost) ordinary university, positively anchored in reality – albeit with this inimitable fairy-tale tinge that old stones and gothic style can confer to a centuries-old institution.
I soon found out that Yale was New Haven, just as New Haven was Yale – or not quite? Scattered across downtown New Haven, Yale is omnipresent, and the streets of this charming old town are flooded with students sporting Yale colors. But were one to stray just a few blocks away from this vast campus, a completely different picture would reveal itself: that of a de facto segregated town where the African American minority looks up in dismay and envy to the “rich Yale kids”.
Most students choose to ignore this disturbing picture, even though it always reappears at some point in one way or another – be it the Black lady begging at the street corner or the “Black males” whose misdemeanors regularly fill the police campus reports sent to every student.
I did not close my eyes on the ambiguity of New Haven. In fact, I chose – probably in a reckless move – to live on one of the “worst” streets of New Haven. But worst from which point of view? True, it is an all-black neighborhood, apparently home to a few drug dealers. But diversity does not bother me, and the friendly smiles and greetings I get every day on my way to class are something I would never dream of encountering in Geneva.
But what about classes, then? Does Yale really live up to its legend? Well, I have to say it does. Admittedly, the high quality standard of our institute’s teaching staff is only equaled, not significantly surpassed. And the same shortcomings are to be found there as well: overcrowded seminars contrast with empty classes and ineffective class registration systems leave students frustrated… However, the main difference lies in the proportions : instead of our institute’s few small scattered buildings, it is a whole town of residential colleges and campus buildings, with a library that is literally a cathedral devoted to higher learning, encompassing a dozen floors stacked with books on all subjects and in all possible languages… The campus is impressive, and so are the means devoted to the students. Not a day passes without a reception, a free banquet or a party organized by one department or another. Yes, Yale is indeed breathtaking.
And yet nothing in this world comes really for free. Luckily, I do not have to pay the exorbitant tuition fees that other students are subject to. But I do have to fulfill the other part of the contract, and study as hard as I am required to. And living up to increased expectations is not always an easy task, but it is a tremendous challenge I readily accepted.
By December, this little world will definitely have become mine, just as Geneva became, or will soon become yours. A little corner of our life we will never forget, for we gave it our best, and were accordingly rewarded.
Salutations from New Haven!"
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