Expérience à New Haven, Etats-Unis par Pamela

What is it like to live in New Haven? Would you recommend it? What is the city like?

The weather is fine; it is New England so it gets snowy in winter and hot and humid in the summer. It's coastal, so the weather is a cross between New York City's and Hartford's, although everything in Connecticut is along Long Island Sound or a major riverway otherwise life would be uninhabitable "inland." I'm Canadian, so the "harsh" weather, to me, is actually a little less "harsh" than Canada is supposed to be. However, New England weather is not for the faint-hearted.
Public transportation is limited. I see buses going by but have no idea how often or how much of Greater New Haven they cover. It is, after all, the US. You will probably at the very least greatly desire a car here. Fortunately, there are cheap used cars available here. Parking one gets better the further away from campus you get, but you have to beware of safety in the neighbourhoods right around campus.
New Haven is a port town, like Bridgeport and New London. That's its "ambiance." Yale is like a giant anomaly in an otherwise "blue-collar" and "ring around the collar" kind of town.

What is the student lifestyle like in New Haven?

Here's the fun part. Trying to describe the way New Haven treats Yalies. First off, let me start with the fact that this is MY experience. Most Yalies historically, have been White, Caucasian, and male. That seems to be what the world thinks Yale is, and New Haven is mostly black and unemployed or, like I said, blue-collar type workers. At best, uneducated and unable to "make the grade" to have gotten in to Yale in the first place. I can't count the times I've been told by the New Havenites around that I "look too stupid to have gotten into Yale" or had them say in surprise," You got into Yale? But I thought you had to be smart to get into Yale!" right to my face. I am the daughter of a Cost Accountant and I was, too, raised in middle-class suburbia college-preparatory, got almost all A's and scored high enough on my entrance exams. I do have my Master's degree from Yale. And New Haven people outside of Yale campus itself, treats me like they assume I must be a high school dropout welfare "trash" type person because, as people AT Yale then tell me, that's the kind of area Yale happens to be right smack in the middle of. In all fairness I think that nonwhite Johns Hopkinite students and alum get treated like that too, when they're IN Baltimore and dealing with the neighbourhood surrounding Johns Hopkins that is probably the worst part of Baltimore. Because I'm dark-skinned, and being the USA they think all dark skin is "black," not Aboriginal of their own continent (Red Indian), they assume that my being in New Haven means that I'm New Haven "ghetto Black." And not a Yalie. That is probably either part of or the entire reason that most American minorities shy away from attending Yale even if they do get accepted. The area around Yale will treat you like you're ghetto trash uneducated like them and not a Yale student or alum, let alone a science or Maths major. What makes that assumption stick even more is that there is a perception that anyone "black" at Yale must be the janitorial staff or the dishwashing staff and not the students or the professors. Yale does have about a 51% minority student body by now, but that is counting foreign Asians and foreign Africans and "islanders" and not Native American Red Indians or Latinos.
In short, my perception is this: Yale, great: New Haven treats me like ghetto trash schleprock.

How much does it cost to live in New Haven?

The cost of living in New Haven is skyrocketing. It is becoming also a commuter suburb for New York City which raises the prices, even New York commuters being willing to live in the ghetto-ish areas around Yale these days. If you know where to go you can get food cheap, but that requires either infinite patience riding public transit or your own car.

Is it difficult to find accommodation in New Haven? Is there any advice you can give?

It's the US, so anyone from the US, i.e. other states, and for some reason Canada, finds that lodging in the Yale area is as competitive as admission was. Everything seems to want a credit check and proof of income, also references. This is what I'm NOT seeing overseas in student residences which is part of why I made the decision to expatriate for my PhD. Or a second Masters, whichever. I'm Canadian and I still get asked for credit check, proof of employment, and references - and yes, for "student" residences. Connecticut, and indeed all of New England, is THAT competitive.

What is the food like? What are your favourite dishes?

It seems like a lot of places in walking distance from campus have student discounts so the price of food is not as bad as the cost of living in New England would dictate.

What places would you recommend visiting in New Haven?

The port, and the beach, are kind of pretty.

Is it good to eat out in New Haven? Can you tell us your favourite spots?

Apparently there are some good places along State Street.

Is the nightlife good in New Haven? Where is good to go?

If you're not afraid to go out after dark, there are probably plenty of places to go out, but it's advised to use the buddy system and the campus safety shuttle. And that, my friends, is entirely because of the black-ghetto-criminal/white-rich-Yalie dichotomy. White people in New Haven are presumed to be Yalies or affiliated with Yale and are, and can be, targeted for crime by the black ghetto criminal locals, whom I might say "were jealous because they couldn't get in to Yale" but no, Yale is not the only university in New Haven so it's not that. I'm not sure what it is, actually, because the area treats me like I "look Black" so "look like" New Haven ghetto uneducated criminals even though I grew up as "lily white" as every other Yalie who has ever graduated from Yale. Yale had the first black mathematician to earn a PhD and that was back in the 1800's so I really don't know what the problem is with the surrounding area's blacks against Yale.

What advice would you give future students heading to New Haven?

Please take my review with a grain of salt. I have the "I'm a Yalie but New Haven treats me like black ghetto trash who looks too stupid to have gotten into Yale in the first place" overall, take on Yale. Yale being what it is; New Haven sucks. I actually think white Yalies think better of New Haven than I do, for New Haven treats them more like Yalies than it does me. It's not how I dress, talk, walk, or carry myself. It's always done instantaneously based on nothing but the colour of my skin. It's extremely RARE in this area for me to actually be asked about my Master's thesis in Mathematical Computational Biophysics. No, I'm more likely to get that one that I "don't look smart enough to have gotten in." This is why I'm going overseas to somewhere where there isn't that dichotomy around the university with regard to skin colour of the surrounding ghetto-slum area versus what university Maths students "look like." I hope. I hope that somewhere in the world there exists such a place?