yale university dorm tour

I'm a freshman at Yale University's Old Campus. Here's what my dorm room life is like.

• As a first-year student at Yale, I live on Old Campus with almost all the other freshmen.
• My suite has four people, and we share a common room and a bathroom.
• Next year, I'll move to the Saybrook residential college on campus.

When picking where I wanted to go to college , each school's housing system was one of the most important factors. Coming from a small high school and living in a quiet Southern suburb, Yale's residential-college housing system stood out.

As a proud member of Saybrook College at Yale, I've finally settled into living on the famous Old Campus in the beautiful Vanderbilt Hall.

Here's what that experience is like and what Saybrook College will be like once I'm promoted to sophomore standing .

Since the summer, I've been a member of Saybrook College.

Any explanation of Yale's housing has to start with the residential-college system. There are 14 residential colleges, and all Yale students are affiliated with one before we even get to campus. Each college houses a few hundred undergraduates, as well as some fellows.

If you ask anyone in a different college, such as Trumbull or Morse, they may say their college is the best; let me assure you they're just plain wrong.

Like most other freshmen across the colleges, I live on Old Campus.

Of the 14 colleges, 10 send their freshmen to live together on the historical Old Campus. There are seven dorm buildings on Old Campus, with three split between two colleges and four belonging to individual colleges.

Old Campus consists of a small, rectangular courtyard surrounded by the dorm buildings, Dwight Hall, Linsly-Chittenden Hall, and Battell Chapel. It's a lively hub for socializing under the elms in the warmer months.

As a Saybrugian, I get to live in Vanderbilt Hall.

All freshmen in Saybrook live in the magnificent Vanderbilt Hall. We Saybrugians share the hall with the freshmen from Branford College.

Vanderbilt is the crown jewel of Old Campus housing — with beautiful views of Connecticut Hall and its lovely courtyard.

We Saybrugians like to have fun when we aren’t studying.

Because it's home to all freshman Saybrugians, Vanderbilt Hall's community is tight-knit. We often hang out in the kitchen and cook together. Occasionally, we venture into Saybrook proper to take advantage of its facilities.

Most first years have some suite-style living arrangement — typically with three or four students.

Our suite has a common room with two attached double bedrooms.

Some of the fancier suites on the higher floors tend to have more spacious arrangements, including the princess suites in Welch, but the suite of two doubles is fairly common.

Our common-room fireplace mantle is the perfect place to store my books from home.

Yale common rooms used to have functional fireplaces, but for obvious safety reasons, the school did away with that. We still have them, which makes for convenient book storage and a perfect place for this amazing poster of a smoking bulldog my roommate found.

After some rearranging, I got a bed right next to the window.

My double is a little tight, but with some rearrangement of furniture, my roommate and I have made the best use of the space. For example, we stacked our dressers, with me getting the top drawers.

As I wake up every morning to the sun beaming through the window, my first views are always the businesses across Chapel Street, my "For God, For Country And For Yale" banner, and my favorite poster.

We have a hall bathroom, but it's basically en suite.

My suitemates and I lucked out. Being the only suite on our floor, the bathroom belongs to just the four of us.

Next year, I will leave Old Campus and live in Saybrook College proper.

Once I'm a sophomore, I and all my friends from my side of Vanderbilt Hall will move into Saybrook College.

While students in some of the other colleges may have to relocate a little bit farther, Saybrook College is right across the street from Old Campus.

A big draw of the residential-college system is all the facilities in each college.

The residential-college system is modeled after the constituent colleges of Oxford and Cambridge. While not fully autonomous, Yale's colleges have their own facilities — with every college having a dining hall, a game room, a buttery (a late-night food spot), a library, a gym, and courtyards.

Our colleges are held up and maintained by their incredibly hardworking staff and student aides.

Saybrook College would not function without its stellar staff of senior advisors, RAs, and others who help plan Saybrook events.

In my humble opinion, Yale is already the best college anywhere on the planet, but I got doubly lucky when I was assigned its best residential college, Saybrook.

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Anatomy of a yale dorm room.

Ah, the college dorm room: it’s cramped, it has fairy lights, and it looks like the home section at Target. It also probably contains a roommate, who you might love, or you might hate. Either way, dorms certainly teach you how to share.

Yale dorms have many of the essential characteristics that other dorms have, but they also come with some pretty unique features. Think old fireplaces in common rooms*, wood floors, and bay windows overlooking gorgeous courtyards.

Though I live off campus this year, I really enjoyed living in Yale dorms as a first-year and sophomore. I learned how to maximize my space in order to have a place for work and rest. Here’s a quick lesson on functional dorm anatomy:

PART 1: THE BED

In college, beds are for eating, studying, and late-night conversations. Oh, and sleeping too. It’s a versatile space! I always like to put photos and lights around my bed to keep it cozy and personal. The string lights also provide some extra light for reading. Machine washable, durable bedding is a must (re: eating). Particularly in smaller first-year rooms, your bed is often one of the few spots you can truly call your own. So, the bed area is definitely a place to customize for your needs and let your personality shine through.

PART 2: THE DESK

Depending on your study preferences, desks can serve different purposes. I tend to study in the library more often than in my room, because I find it’s more productive. So, I use my desk partly as a dresser (lol), and partly as a space to write emails, check my homework answers, and do other light work. There’s an abundance of study spaces around Yale’s campus (literally dozens of libraries), and when you’re on the go it can be hard to come back to your room to do work. Some people love studying in their room, others don’t. So get creative when utilizing your desk space!

PART 3: THE CLOSET

Designing your closet is mastering the art of strategic storage. When you wake up at 9am and class is at 9:25, you need to have quick access to your wardrobe staples. You also need to save space for formal wear, workout gear, and lots of winter coats (do NOT forget to pack this!). While the exact design of your closet depends on whether you have a wardrobe or a closet, every setup needs storage cubes, a mirror, and some extra string lights for visibility.

PART 4: THE REST (IF YOU’RE LUCKY…)

Not every first-year dorm has a ton of floor space, but you should definitely take advantage of whatever you’ve got! Throw down a runner rug to up the coziness, or keep enough space clear to roll out a yoga mat for a quick workout. Get a utility cart, side table, or shelf if you need extra storage. Buy some bean bags or folding chairs if you plan on using your room as a social space.

Long story short: maximize your space for your needs. Keep it functional, keep it fun, and enjoy the ~Yale aesthetic~ :)

* the fireplaces no longer work, so you can’t accidentally set anything on fire

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Yale Dorm Tour (Freshman Dorm)

I will be giving you a dorm tour of my freshman college suite here at Yale University! All Yale Undergrads are randomly split into 14 different residential colleges; luckily, I was placed into the best one: Pierson! YouTube: Arnold Setiadi.

The following is an computer-generated summary of the video transcript.

So today we are going to do a tour of my norm here at Yale, my freshman dorm and the way it works. That hell is that Yellow undergrads are split into 14 random residential colleges, and I'm split into Pearson College and Pearson College in particular, lives on old campus, which is where most of the freshmen are housed in two, and Pearson in particular, is housed in land and Write hall, which is also what we call held up. I know that it's very complicated, but basically we are notoriously known for a very small dorms. All of the Pearson College students are housed in here. I have one roommate, so they're to double in here for four people total, and I am on the fourth floor, so we are always walking up every day, but you get used to it. Also on this floor, we share a bathroom with four other girls next door. Are some so sorry for not saying anything because I didn't want to bother anybody. I didn't wanna wake anybody up in the hallways you know, we are a pretty close knit family. Let me get started the door to our room and, as you can tell to the left over here way, have a recycling bin such garbage slashed brewing and some shoes, some shoes that are kind of just messy over there. I got everything is blank because we still need to decorate our way. Have Mr Sun a couch with these lights, just like starting a little, please. Then here we have our little table over here and this is my roommate to Joe's desk. You know, this is my sweet matrix vest missing that were made Sam's best. So if you have any recommendations because we are always open to, you know, making everything look a little bit better. Who was that? So basically those pillows, that table, the biggest mirror, all these lights, pretty much all of them were about my future. Okay, so this is my little area to study just in time. If you want me to go more in depth, I'd like you to show all the things I got you. I could definitely do a video that But once I said what I said, Like I said before, we live in elder women. Recall were notoriously known for having a small rooms. It's a pretty decent, I think that's my Yeah, who? Thank you guys once again for clicking on the video. I'm sorry for the camera and the audio quality, and we are definitely going to be decorating this a bit more and making it more homey, and I might update you guys in the future, but I was gonna say against this refreshment in our house in here. Once we are upperclassmen, we get placed into our actual residential college, which people say is pretty big. Oh, by the way, I haven't I don't know if I showed it with this light, Have you seen number back with its weird lighting? But thank you guys so much for watching leave comments on what else you want to see it. I'm gonna sleep because prettily peace out.

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Welcome to Yale College

Over the summer, you will be receiving messages that introduce you to Yale's resources and help you get ready for your arrival. But you can start preparing now. Here are some suggestions to get you on your way.

Start with your essentials

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Plan your arrival

Move-in day is a big day, with lots to do. Make it a success by planning ahead.

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You will receive plenty of guidance as you plan your first semester, but you can get a head start now by knowing what to expect in the fall.

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Yale College is a community of communities, defined not only by residential colleges but also by the organizations you will join. Whatever you have in mind, here are a few suggestions to get you started.

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Recently Visited

Urban Data Science Expert Arianna Salazar-Miranda Joins YSE Faculty

Using computational methods, including causal inference, spatial analysis, sensing, mapping, and related historical work, Salazar-Miranda studies how policies that shape the built environment affect social and environmental outcomes.

Arianna Salazar-Miranda came to the field of sustainable urban planning by way of architecture — and through a respect for the environment that was nurtured by her experiences growing up in Costa Rica.

Salazar-Miranda , who will be joining the Yale School of the Environment faculty in July as assistant professor of urban planning and data science , grew up in San José, the capital of Costa Rica.

“Costa Rica is a place that prioritizes conservation and biodiversity. You are surrounded by people who are committed to protecting water resources, wildlife, clean beaches, and sustainable development. There is a prevailing sense that nature comes first. Nature was something that was very much a part of my day-to-day experience,” Salazar-Miranda said.

After receiving her licentiate degree in architecture from Veritas University in Costa Rica in 2012 and working in housing design, she became interested in sustainable urban and regional development as she witnessed the effects of increasing severe weather events, such as intense heat and flooding, on Costa Rica.

Cities are front and center in tackling environmental issues and the climate crisis. We need to better understand their inner workings, improve their functionality, and plan for their development in a systematic way.”

“There are a lot of climate challenges happening in my hometown and across the globe. It has become clear that our approach to development must address these urgent issues. I found myself wanting to make a difference on a much larger scale. That’s how I shifted from the individual building to embracing the city scale, and that’s when I thought, this is where my heart is,” she recalled.

She enrolled in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and earned a master’s in urban and regional planning in 2016 and earned her PhD in computational urban science and planning in 2023. After graduating from MIT and before starting at YSE, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Mansueto Institute of Urban Innovation at the University of Chicago. Her research focuses on how emerging technologies can be leveraged to design more sustainable urban environments and the importance of understanding how past and current development paradigms impact cities.

Arianna Salazar Miranda Assistant Professor of Urban Planning and Data Science (Beginning Fall 2024)

“Cities are front and center in tackling environmental issues and the climate crisis. We need to better understand their inner workings, improve their functionality, and plan for their development in a systematic way,” she said.

Using machine learning, sensing technology, spatial analysis, mapping, and related historical work Salazar-Miranda examines the impact of development paradigms on social and environmental dimensions of urban life, including patterns of sedentarism, social mixing, greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), and exposure to environmental risks.

“YSE will benefit from Dr.  Salazar- Miranda’s expertise and training as an urban planner and data scientist. By combining spatial analysis, computation methods, and sensing techniques, her presence on the faculty will strengthen YSE’s urban specialization, the Yale-wide urban initiative, and the new urban climate leadership certificate program ,” said Karen Seto, Frederick C. Hixon Professor of Geography and Urbanization Science, who headed the search committee for the position.

Salazar-Miranda utilizes a combination of technologies to study the built environment and behavior of residents in cities, including lidar, a sensing method that uses pulses of laser light to determine the shape and distance of objects, cell phone data, GPS, and camera-based sensors.

“Technology is revolutionizing the way we can understand cities, how they function and the repercussions of different planning ideas,” she said.

In one study that examined redlining across more than 200 U.S. cities, she and a team of scientists provided evidence that the areas that were assigned a lower-credit grade by the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation in the 1930s have a higher exposure to flood risk and a higher air temperature today compared to similar properties in higher-graded areas. The study established that the long-lasting effects of historical urban planning policies can be linked to present-day unequal exposures to climate risks.

In other research, Salazar-Miranda analyzed suburban development using high-resolution mobility data from GPS and street layouts from OpenStreetMap for the entire U.S. She found that people in neighborhoods that were developed with more winding and disconnected streets are more socially isolated, sedentary, and produce more GHG emissions.

Salazar-Miranda also has conducted ground-breaking work on favelas, which are informal low-income housing settlements in Brazil. Using lidar, she studied Rocinha, one of the largest favelas in Rio de Janeiro, to examine ways the city could improve the quality of life in the settlements.

“Lidar data allowed us to create detailed maps of the types of built environments in the favelas to help improve infrastructure and access in historically marginalized communities,” she said.

She has done extensive research with MIT Senseable City Lab scientists on the “15-Minute-Cities” model of urban planning that features the design of mixed-use neighborhoods with offices, schools, parks, and shops that are within a 15-minute walk or bike ride from everyone’s home. The walkable city cuts down on tailpipe emissions from gas-powered automobiles but a study she co-authored found that majority of Americans have never experienced it. The researchers, who analyzed mobile-phone location data for 40 million Americans, found that while many Northeastern cities in the U.S. are walkable, the median resident in the U.S. makes only 14% of trips for consumptive errands within a 15-walking radius and the fastest growing regions of the country have among the lowest levels of 15-minute usage.

“We are used to a world where every errand is an epic road trip, and we hardly notice the high costs we pay in time, gasoline, parking spaces and pollution,” Salazar-Miranda and co-author Carlo Ratti, director of Senseable City Lab, said in an article in Bloomberg .

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Biweekly, we highlight three news and research stories about the work we’re doing at Yale School of the Environment.

Ratti, professor of the practice of urban technologies and planning at MIT, said Salazar-Miranda’s research contributes to the development of on-the-ground planning solutions to combat climate change.

“Arianna is that exceptional academic who masterfully bridges the gap between in-depth scholarly research and its tangible effects on urban environments — especially in enhancing the lives of citizens,” he said.

At YSE, Salazar-Miranda will continue her research into how urban development design affects climate and sustainability and will focus on zoning codes in American cities. Using text analysis methods, she will develop quantitative metrics to evaluate zoning reform efforts and study whether they foster compact, pedestrian-oriented, and mixed-use environments. She also will use the zoning data to explore how zoning regulations contribute to unequal exposure to environmental risks across income groups.

“In a broad sense, I want to deepen our understanding of how urban planning paradigms can lead to more sustainable outcomes,” Salazar-Miranda said. “There are strategic interventions that can really improve the way we design and build our cities.”

Salazar-Miranda, who likes to paint, take hikes with her dog, and try new restaurants, said one of the things she’s most looking forward to is working with an interdisciplinary team and the many centers and program at YSE and Yale, including Yale’s new Center for Geospatial Solutions, which is co-directed by Seto and Costas Arkolakis, professor of economics in Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

“There’s a lot of momentum at Yale in addressing the problems I am passionate about,” Salazar-Miranda said.

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Yale Housing

Es harkness hall, building description.

Built in 1955,  ES Harkness Hall consists of 172 single-occupancy bedrooms. Each floor has 21 or 22 rooms. Residents are assigned into rooms on the 4th through 11th floors. All floors are coed except for one all-male floor (6th floor) and one all-female floor (8th floor). There is also a Quiet Floor (11th floor) for students looking to live in an intentionally quiet environment.

Elevator Access, Shared Bathrooms, and Furniture

• There are two elevators that access the upper floors in Harkness. 
• There is one large, coed, shared bathroom on each floor. (The bathrooms on the gender-specific floors are gender specific!) There are doors on all shower and bathroom stalls for individual privacy.
• Rooms have standard University-provided bedroom furniture: extra-long twin-sized bed frame and mattress, desk and desk chair, dresser, and in some rooms, an additional sitting chair. All bedrooms contain a vanity with sink and mirror. There is limited overhead lighting, so residents should bring additional lighting for their desks.

Internet Access, Cable TV, and Mail/Package Delivery

• Harkness rooms are provided with an Internet port, cable TV port, and telephone port. Students must activate the telephone port (via Yale University Telecom services) to use the landline telephone system. There is a separate charge for use of the telephone (and long-distance charges) but no additional charges for accessing the Internet or cable TV.
• Students accessing the Yale network must register their computers at www.yale.edu/netreg for full use of the Internet.
• All of Harkness is on the University’s wireless network for student convenience!
• Mail is received by the U.S. Postal system Monday–Friday and distributed to student mail boxes. Student packages are received by the Harkness Housing Office and available to students during office hours. 

Other Amenities

• There are four kitchenettes within the building on the 4th, 7th, 9th, and 11th floors. The kitchenettes contain a stove and oven unit, microwave, sink and small countertop area, as well as a full-size freezer. All students in the building share the kitchen resources. Students intending to use the kitchenettes are expected to bring their own cookware and utensils. A mini refrigerator is provided in each room.
• The basement of Harkness contains a student laundry room, and the Harkness gym. All students living in Harkness have an automatic free membership to the Harkness gym.
• The ground-floor Harkness Housing Office is open Monday–Friday with University staff.

Security Access for Residential Areas

For security purposes, access into the residential floors via elevator or stairwell is limited. Students need a valid, programmed ID card, and/or their bedroom key to access the residential areas of Harkness.

The ground floor/lobby level area houses the Harkness Housing Office, and Cafe Med which are open Monday–Friday. During business hours, the entry doors to Harkness are unlocked for convenient access into the public area of the building.    

Floor Plans and 360 Virtual Tours

These are sample floor plans only. Each dormitory room may vary in floor plan and size.

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From IUP to the Ivy League

The next chapter of Caio Gomes’s life is about to begin, and he couldn’t be more excited.

Come fall, he will be a student at Yale Law School in New Haven, Connecticut.

That’s right: Yale. From the Ivy League.

“It’s still hard to get my mind around,” said Gomes, who will graduate from IUP on May 10 with a bachelor’s degree in international studies. “I had all these options, and it was all kind of overwhelming.”

Gomes, who will graduate with all As and one B on his final IUP transcript, applied to a multitude of law schools, hoping to find the best fit. When the dust cleared, he had acceptance offers from 12, including some big names, such as Cornell, Duke, Penn, Yale, and UCLA.

Yale, which admits roughly 5 percent of applicants, was ultimately the right choice for Gomes, who came to the United States from his native Brazil when he was 12.

“I applied to a lot of places, because I wanted to have options,” he said. “When the offers started coming, I felt like I had been run over by a train. But I have good people around me who have helped me through it.”

Those people include faculty members such as Chauna Craig (English/Cook Honors College) and Rachel Sternfeld (Political Science), Cook Honors College staff members Kevin Berezansky and Lisa Halmes, and Shawn Jones, from the Office of Admissions.

“I really love the support IUP gives,” Gomes said. “I have a lot of people to be thankful for.”

What initially attracted him to IUP when he was in high school, he said, was its affordability and proximity to his family’s home in Pittsburgh. He also was interested in the honors college and in being active on campus. He has served as president of the Latino Student Organization, as an IUP Ambassador, and as a writer for the Penn . He was admitted as a Promising Scholar and received scholarship money for being admitted to the honors college.

“I really love the support IUP gives. I have a lot of people to be thankful for.”

“The cost was the biggest thing in my head,” he said. “I wasn’t sure I could make college work, but coming to IUP has been a great decision. I knew right away after I got here that I had made the right decision. The honors college has a very strong curriculum that has helped prepare me for what I’ll study at law school, and I’ll be able to graduate without debt, because of the scholarships IUP has given me.”

After law school, Gomes hopes to have a career as an immigration attorney. He said he might also consider running for Congress.

But for now, he’s getting ready to close his chapter at IUP and begin a new one in the Ivy League.

“It will be a little bittersweet,” he said. “For the most part, I am happy to start a new chapter. But when you’ve been somewhere for four years and it has meant so much to you, it makes you sad to think about leaving. IUP is like home to me. I have my roots here now.”