“Isn’t your Econ midterm on Monday?”
“Yeah, and what about it?”
Yale practically invented the econ-finance bro grind—where everyone’s doing everything, all at once. But when Thursday hits 10:30 p.m., the go go go academic hustle dissipates at the pre. At Yale, no matter what, there are plans every weekend.
A Thursday-Friday-Saturday marathon of parties might sound insane to the outside world, but at Yale, it’s a carefully honed art form. Especially if you’re an athlete who can get the quickest Dean’s Extension because “practice is interfering” with that deadline for the paper you haven’t started. The weekday is for curling up in bed pretending you’re “reading.” And the weekend? That’s for running the streets like the world’s most overqualified marathoner.
In all seriousness, Yale makes it far too easy to bounce back from the weekend’s carnage. Who cares if your last-minute assignment was co-authored between you and ChatGPT? When 78.9 percent of us are cruising on an A or A- (love you, grade inflation!), we’re living proof that inflated grades pair perfectly with the inflated egos Yale has us primed for.
Being at Yale is an odd paradox: you put in just enough effort to convince yourself you’re working, and yet the payoff is enormous — pretentious partying with the side of a degree that will forever convince strangers you are far smarter and capable than you actually are.
And when the night finally winds down, GHeav’s is right there to nurse your regrets with a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich so greasy it’ll clog your arteries and your shame. By morning, when the hangxiety kicks in, you’ll be hunched over in the back corner of Atticus, whispering the night’s confessions to friends over overpriced lattes. It’s a ritual—cleanse your soul, ready your liver, and prep for Round 2 (or 3, depending on how many parties bounced around) that night.
It doesn’t matter if midterms are around the corner or the weather outside feels like New Haven’s freezing over—there’s always a function. Mysteriously, every house on campus is hosting, even when you’re scrambling at 10 p.m., convinced that you’ll be stuck in your suite forever.
Although we can’t “balance” it all, shame creeps in on those rare nights you choose to stay in. You tell yourself you’re being responsible, catching up on work, yet all you can think about is the FOMO gnawing at you. The quiet noise in your room, which was meant to bring you peace now becomes unbearable. The weekend’s endless clamor feels like it’s mocking you, and for a brief moment, the Yale hustle catches up – not because you’re overwhelmed by it, but because you’re missing it. Then comes that inevitable moment when schoolwork sneaks up on you like a delayed hangover. You’ve dodged deadlines long enough with half-baked excuses and lucky breaks, but now the work piles up faster than you can push it aside. And still, there’s always that voice in your head: “Isn’t everyone else out right now?” So the cycle repeats: you run to catch up just in time, driving back into the grind, knowing full well that by Thursday night, it’ll all start again.
In true Yale spirit, work hard and party even harder – there’s always time to recover because if there’s one thing this place teaches you, it’s that you can absolutely take the whole week off to recuperate, finding shortcuts and excuses no matter what.