Author Archives: Jessamyn Blau

A lot of columnists less egotistical than I have found it appropriate to leave their columns at the height of their game, or to at least sign off with no more obvious a self-reference than a simple “This will be so-and-so’s last regular column” in the tagline. I don’t believe in that. My last column »

At home in Paris three years ago, I went with my best friend to pay her tuition bill for law school. After stating her name to the woman seated at a folding table near the university library, she took out her checkbook and paid the sum in full: just over $300 for the semester. I »

There is no way to start a column about the college admissions process in a new, scintillating way. I could tell you about Student X of Nebraska who is fretting about her early application process right this minute as you eat your sausage patty and apple cinnamon dairyless pancakes. Or I could remind you of »

In just a cursory look at the pages of the Blue Book, one thing jumps out at me: Yale’s History Department is having a love affair with the history of identity groups. African Americans, Native Americans, Jews and women all have at least one course devoted to them in the History Department. You will not »

It’s worse than senioritis or the hypochondriacal sophomore slump. It’s not every senior’s worse nightmare the real world. It’s the ambitious early applicant’s worst nightmare, and the fate of seniors all across campus these days: the crisis of Yale identity. If you’re a freshman, you probably don’t quite get it yet, unless you’re advanced. Look »

What did the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks mean to you? As far as I can tell, this is a question that every American is theoretically supposed to be able to answer in a touching way (i.e., not, for instance, “Well, my mutual funds were pretty adversely affected,”). On Sept. 12, 2001, indeed, everyone had something »

After almost four years, I didn’t think President George Bush would ever do something I approved of. As it happens, however, someone — and I certainly don’t suggest that this was the work of Bush himself — in said administration happens to have made my day. Whoever this stooge was, he or she appointed Ronald »

Sign my petition. It’s really important, it’s a cause supported by at least several dozen — uh, several people, and please, join me tomorrow when I scream at a building that houses the office of President Levin. I will bring lasting change to Yale, the country, and the world. Right. Around here, if you walk »

As an ambitious freshman at Yale, I awaited April with glee, hoping that I, too, would one day get initiated into Skull and Bones, Scroll and Key, Dumb and Dumber, and Macaroni and Cheese. Then, after five minutes of fantasizing, my rationality returned. And it was then and there that I decided to form my »

Let’s say you walk into Yale University Health Services tomorrow to, say, complain of a tummy ache. The cheerful receptionist, before making you wait for approximately six hours, asks you to fill out a form on which you are asked to describe your “gender identity history.” It’s not happening here, but at Wesleyan, that’s the »

Something strange is happening at the Yale Law School. Previously undiscovered conservatives are voicing their opinions. And, even in the exceptionally liberal atmosphere that characterizes the Law School, those opinions are being respected. We all have heard of the Wall — or have at least seen it on our hurried way to introductory economics when »

Remember the charmingly blue view book that Yale used to seduce you by telling you that 75 percent (75 percent!) of courses enroll fewer than 20 students? Now, my experience shows 55.6 percent of my classes having 20 or fewer students. But many applicants probably assume that approximately three-fourths of their courses will have 20 »