Announcements

►Environmental Humanities Course Listings for Fall 2024

The Fall 2024 Yale Environmental Humanities guide to undergraduate and graduate course offering list dozens of courses offered each semester that approach environmental issues from diverse humanities perspectives. Some courses are entirely focused on the environment and the humanities; others approach the environmental humanities as one of several integrated themes.

Undergraduate students interested in exploring the intersection of environment and culture— including literature, history, anthropology, philosophy, religion, the arts, and other humanities disciplines— are encouraged to sign up for the Yale Environmental Humanities newsletter that circulates every Monday morning during the semester. During the last semester, the newsletter and calendar publicized more than 100 different events across the campus.

Questions about environmental humanities? Contact Prof. Paul Sabin, faculty director of Yale Environmental Humanities.

► The Dr. T Project

Prof. Shawkat M. Toorawa (Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations) invites students to join him for the Dr. T Project  most Tuesday, 4:30-5:00 p.m. to learn about three items of cultural interest: one literary, one musical, and one general interest. Cookies and San Pellegrino are served.

Fall 2024 dates are September 3, 10, 17, and 24; October 1, 8, 22, and 29; November 5, 12, and 19; and December 3. Location: HQ 132.

Offered with support from the Whitney Humanities Center.

► Yale College Writing Center 

Questions? Email Paula Rawlins, the Yale College Writing Center’s assistant director.

The Writing Center offers one-on-one consultations to Yale College students at any stage of the writing process. Students are welcome to bring drafts to sessions, though they are not required to do so. Tutors and Writing Partners can help writers brainstorm, provide feedback on drafts, and assist students in building their editing and proofreading skills. Sessions are offered in a variety of formats:

• Residential College Writing Tutors:   Make an appointment with a professional writing tutor. 
• Writing Partner Drop-In Hours: Writing Partners (Yale undergrads and graduate students who are talented writers who love helping others) meet with Yale College students to talk through ideas or give feedback on drafts on a first-come, first-served basis. They may be found upstairs in the Poorvu Center (301 York St.), seven days a week, at a variety of morning, afternoon, and evening times.
• Writing Partner Online Appointments:  sign-up to meet with a Writing Partner via Zoom. Online appointments will be available 7:00-10:00 pm Sunday, Monday, and Thursday evenings. Students may also “drop-in” for help during these hours by using the Zoom link provided once signed into WConline.
• Fellowship Writing Partners: Fellowship Writing Partners offer feedback on proposals and essays written by students applying to scholarships or fellowship programs over a course of approximately three appointments. Request a Fellowship Writing Partner here. 
• Weekly Writing Partners: Designed for students taking a writing intensive course or working on a long-term writing project who seek to meet with the same Writing Partner each week. Request a Weekly Writing Partner.
• Study Halls: Poorvu 121 is the location for weekly study ahlls on Wednesdays (evenings) and Sundays (afternoons). Writing Partners are on hand to offer feedback and share snacks. A Writing Partner familiar with Directed Studies in on hand on Wednesdays.

► Resources for Math Courses and the Math Major

Information about mathematics courses, including calculus and the math major introductory sequence, is available on the Mathematics Department’s first-year student resources site.

The website features sections on placement, advice for choosing your first math course at Yale, links to other resources, and contact information for further inquiries.

► Meet with Your Personal Librarian

For individual support for coursework and research assignments, reach out to a librarian! Find the name and contact information for your Personal Librarian at this link.

► Health Professions and STEM Advising for First-Years

First-year students interested in health professions or STEM fields related to health professions are invited to watch a pre-med advising video and health professions webinar recording with Kristin McJunkins, Director of Health Professions & STEM Advising in the Office of Career Strategy.

► Health Professions “Quick Questions” Advising for First-year Students

First-year students: interested in the health professions, but unsure where  to start at Yale, are invited to meet with the Office of Career Strategy’s health professions quick questions adviser, Helen Cai. Helen is a Yale College graduate and, currently, a Yale Med student.  Possible topics:

• Med school process
• Exploring the medical professions
• Preparation timeline for applying to med school
• Pursuing research and clinical experience (including STARS) at Yale

Log in to Yale Career Link  to make an appointment.

► Education Studies Weekly Tea and Cookies

The Education Studies multidisciplinary academic program invites all students interested in connecting with other EDST students and meeting the DUS, Prof. Mira Debs, to a Weekly Tea and Cookies on Fridays. 

Students interested in Education Studies are also invited to sign up for the EDST mailing list, for information about gatherings and education-related opportunities.

► Academic Strategies Program Individual Peer and Staff Consultations

Meet with an Academic Strategies peer mentor! Mentors can help you create a weekly schedule, work through academic challenges, and identify goals for the semester. Mentors are availible via request by emailing academicstrategies@yale.edu.

►Women in Economics Study Halls

Women in Economics (WiE) holds reguar, twice-monthly evening study halls in the HQ Undergraduate Students’ Lounge. The fall 2024 start date will be announced in September. Study halls are held every other week.

• Contacts: TBA
• To join the WiE GroupMe for reminders and other events: https://groupme.com/join_group/89203453/jhfn3zR5

►Major Roadmaps

The Yale College Deans Office in consultation with the Directors of Undergraduate Studies has undertaken a project to create a series of “roadmaps,” or visual representations, indicating

• how students go through that major
• a typical course sequence, in some cases

AFST, AMST, ANTH, BENG, CHEM, CGSC, LITR, CPSC, EAST, E&EB, ECON, ENGL, EVST, EP&E, ER&M, GMAN, GLBL, HIST, HSAR, HSHM, HUMS, ITAL, LING, MATH, MENG, MB&B, MCDB, NSCI, PHYS, PLSC, PSYC, SOCY, SPAN, and S&DS currently have roadmaps. More are on the way.

Many majors offer multiple paths, and the maps are designed to facilitate comparison. The roadmaps and typical course sequences are visually uniform so that students may easily compare one major with another at a glance.

More detailed descriptions of the requirements for each major can be found under Subjects of Instruction in the Yale College Programs of Study.

► Graduate-Undergraduate Mentorship Initiative

The  Yale Graduate-Undergraduate Mentorship Initiative maintains a database that pairs Yale undergraduate  mentees with postdoctoral and graduate and professional student mentors from a wide range of fields. An experienced mentor can make all the difference, and GUMI aims to provide mentors who can impart valuable advice to undergraduates considering graduate or professional school.

► Energy@Yale Handbook

Yale’s Energy Liason, Sena Sugiono ‘25, and the director of Energy Studies, Prof. Michael Oristaglio, have produced a comprehensive handbook on all things Yale energy-related. The link to the handbook can be found here.

► Peer Mentorship Program for Leave of Absence Students

The Yale College Council has launched a peer mentorship program for students considering a leave of absence or currently on a leave of absence. Information is available at this link.

► Economics Department Resources

►Yale IEEE Big Sib/Little Sib Program

Concerned about student diversity in SEAS majors and eager to provide advising to first-years and sophomores, the Yale IEEE student group has started a Big Sib/Little Sib group to help address both issues and welcome students of all backgrounds into the SEAS family.

https://forms.gle/sWHesPhCwcy99JrcA

►Yale Undergraduate Research Association Database

The Yale Undergraduate Research Association (YURA)  released a new version of the Research Database (RDB), a cross-disciplinary, searchable, integrated database of 1400+ professors across all undergraduate departments and fields of study. It was built to help fellow undergraduates find potential mentors for research and beyond, and learn more about their professors.

The database can be found at https://yura.yale.edu/database.

Questions or inquiries can be addressed to yura@yale.edu.

► As a First-year, You Can’t Avoid Reinvention

Meera Navlakha writes in her The New York Times Opinion piece, “Before I went to college, I thought of change as something I could control.” As a Freshman, You Can’t Avoid Reinvention

►What Influences International STEM Students’ Decisions? 

A British Council survey of 1,348 international undergraduate and graduate students studying in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States asked about factors affecting their decision making in choosing a country and course of study. The report found that undergraduates tend to choose U.S. universities with the goal of increasing their career prospects globally. Graduate students are drawn by perceptions of rigorous education and high-quality research, and affordability.

“The U.S. perhaps has the most well-rounded value proposition to international STEM students: it is a country where students perceive they can engage in high-quality education and gain skills and research experience to apply to work either there or in their home countries; post-study work experience in the U.S. has expanded and STEM students can now spend 29 months working – though there remains debate about the future sustainability of this policy,” the survey report states.

The survey found that while significant numbers of international students hope to stay in their destination countries to work after graduation, a comparatively small proportion (15 percent) hope to migrate permanently.

Inside Higher Ed Quick Take.

►Goals for All Yale College Majors

The Yale College Dean’s Office launched the “Intensive Majors Project” with, as its top priority, the goal of helping to advise students about their courses of study.  Other goals centered on the faculty, the departments, and Yale’s national accreditation requirements.

It is expected that roughly fifteen majors will conduct self-reviews each year, allowing all majors to undergo review in a four- to five-year cycle, at which point — because major requirements and goals change over time — the self-reviews will begin anew.

You can now read the goals for each Yale College major, as approved by undergraduate departments and programs. 

►Sophomores on Sophomore Year