Emily Cai
Frosh, are you yagued with FrOMO, yuselling to grasp your FroCo’s advice and your CoDo’s emails? Read on.
We have all passed through these metaphorical gates of confusion and bewilderment — and the very real gates of Phelps, which I can’t really walk through without receiving a whiff of this doubtful cocktail, spilled about the crooked bricks of Old Campus. Well, for you, dear Frosh, I present yet another gilded gate (and it’s not the big one in Branford you keep trying to use on your way to hot breakfast, which is and will always be locked): your entrance to normalcy. Once you speak the bulldog lingo, all will make sense. Everything will feel reasonable, tranquil and not as though you have landed on an alien planet, where the dominant species is way too into Gothic architecture. Welcome to the next phase of your life as an informed Yalie.
- Frosh: a first-year student.
- Gut: an easy class.
- Pancreas: an easy class that fulfills a distributional requirement. Like the pancreas, which breaks down proteins and regulates blood sugar, a class of this type fulfills two functions.
- Yub: Yale Hub. Confused about your 10 different ID numbers? Find your UPI, SID, UTI and IUD all in one place at yub.yale.edu.
- Yague: Yale plague. Origin, unknown — but it may be lurking in your Bingham shower’s permanent colony of mold.
- Yussel culture: the true yague of Yale Yollege.
- FroCo: a first-year counselor.
- FrOMO: the soul-sapping brand of FOMO experienced by first years at all waking hours.
- CoHo: Head of College.
- CoDo: Dean of College
- PoYo: President of Yale. Welcome President McInnis! Fun fact: as a graduate student at Yale, McInnis studied history of art — still Yale College’s most popular major among well-dressed white women.
- RoGo: Rory Gilmore. For example, “You’re healing YDN? That’s so RoGo!”
- PreFrosh: a rising first year.
- PreBosch: a period of Dutch art — this one’s for you, McInnis! — before the pioneer Netherlandish painter Hieronymus Bosch, whose painting “An Allegory of Intemperance” is on view at the Yale University Art Gallery. (Bonus word: YUAG)
- BowWow: Schwarzman basement’s finest overpriced market.
- BrowOw: my nightly tweezing routine.
- FGLI: first-generation, low-income students.
- LGHI: last-generation, high-income students.
- Skull and Bones: Yale’s oldest and most notorious senior society, founded in 1882. Known also as The Brotherhood of Death.
- Tongue and Cheek: Yale’s newest and least known senior society, founded last week by Sylvie Goldner ’25 and Solenne Jackson ’25. Known also as The Sisterhood of Breadth & Depth (two core pillars of your imminent Yale education). Please contact solenne.jackson@yale.edu for inquiries.
Can you feel the normalcy in the room? You are now part of Yale, and its vast and eternal tradition of fine young men and terrified everyone else who have walked about these hallowed halls. Welcome, Frosh.