Welcome to Trumbull College: without a doubt the best college at Yale. You are probably wondering, however, why you should be thankful that fate has smiled upon you and placed you into this great college.
Here are just a few tidbits for you to soak in before you get to meet your 399 other Bulls in late August.
Firstly, you will be living in an absolute splendor of architecture nestled right in the heart of the Yale campus. While other colleges boast owning Harkness Tower or a view of the gym and Swing Space, it is only Trumbull that is fortunate enough to be attached to Sterling Memorial Library, which makes up the northern boundary of Main Court.
Architect James Gamble Rodgers, who designed most of the residential colleges, declared that of all that he built at Yale, Trumbull was surely his masterpiece.
You will live among 399 other students whose interests and abilities run the full spectrum from football to hockey, sculpture to drawing, guitar to didgeridoo. You will spend freshman year in Bingham Hall, nestled away on the corner of Old Campus on College and Chapel Streets, without a doubt the most luxurious and accommodating building on Old Campus. Do the other buildings have the Freshman Lounge AND laundry facilities? I do not think so.
You will dine in our Jacobian dining hall and relax in one of our three — yes, I said three — luxurious courtyards. We are the only college to have three courtyards, each with a very distinct character. Stone Court, Main Court, and Potty Court (named such because of a prominent gargoyle) all add various flavors to the overall Trumbull experience.
On Freshman Mooooove-In Day you will meet upperclassmen who are eager to help you begin life here at Yale. The Trumbull Moooovers will be more than happy to help carry anything you need upstairs. You will also meet two very important people. The first is Rev. Master Streets, who will be acting as master of Trumbull this year while Janet Henrich is on leave at the National Institutes of Health. Do not worry, she will return for your sophomore year. The woman walking the creature that looks like some weird canine-ursine hybrid is Dean Laura King, and the creature is the resident Trumdog, Smitty. He may be large, but believe me, he is a gentle giant. He barked once this whole year while sitting in the courtyard.
Top all this off with all the remarkable Trumbull events you will have to take part in and you will clearly see that you have been smiled upon. The best tailgates at Yale football games are found under the gray three-bulled flag. In December, the dining hall will be transformed for the annual Holiday Ball which is always the envy of all the other college balls. Springtime gives you the opportunity to play the best game of “Assassins” on the planet, and then just before finals you will get to run with the Bulls at Pamplona, our annual bacchanal in the sun.
We look forward to meeting you when you come in the spring. Our IM teams await your participation. Our buttery with its foosball and poker tables and cable television will be ready to stretch its legs after a summer of being packed to the gills with storage boxes. Nick Chapel (one of the most sought-after on-campus performance spaces) will be waiting to delight you with theatrical productions. Use the gym, the squash court, the basketball court, the art gallery, the meditation room, the TV room, the pottery room, and anything else that you want to get out of your Trumbull experience. Get ready for a wild adventure.
MOO RAH!!
Gary P. Fernando is a senior in Trumbull College.