Events are held at different locations, from the Founder’s Suite in Benjamin Franklin College to the historic Luther House, and the music ranges from reggae to 2010s pop. The events are planned and organized by Desmos, a senior society.

Most weekday events have a more nonchalant atmosphere, according to Alex Hoang ’24, while Fridays and Saturdays tend to be busier with more dancing. Given the range of experiences and music that Feb Club offers, it provides an occasion to build class spirit and appreciate student performers. 

“Because of the COVID restrictions during my first year at Yale, we did not have many outlets for meaningful connection,” Hoang, who has participated in Feb Club, said. “During the first night, I realized how long it had been since our class year was last united.”

Hoang recalled not knowing what to expect. He added that there was a lot of anticipation, and everyone seemed excited to come together.

The first night of Feb Club occurred at Luther House on Feb. 1, with three bands performing different genres. 

“I think the most fun gig I’ve done so far is the Feb Club’s opening party in Luther,” said Owen Wheeler ’24, lead singer of the band Public Discourse. “Our goal [as a band] is just to be electric.”

Sameer Sultan ’24, bassist and social media manager of the newly founded band Scerface, recounted his experience performing for Feb Club.

“Our first performance was for Valentine’s Day, and our second performance was yesterday at the senior [masquerade],” Sultan added. “There was a variety of music, and people were dancing. I thought, ‘I haven’t seen this many people in my class in the same place for a while.’”

Themes for Feb Club have included “Caribbean x Afrobeats,” “Techno & Tequila” and “Grad Night.” 

Each event had a photo challenge, which required challengers to complete tasks including posing like a DJ and taking pictures with a senior who would not be graduating in the spring. Those who attend all 29 Feb Club parties will be dubbed “All Stars.”

To ensure student safety, each event had three sober monitors.

The final Feb Club event will take place on Thursday, Feb. 29.

The post Feb Club nears its end appeared first on Yale Daily News.

On Feb. 15, the comedian confidently took the stage and filled the room with charisma. Nwodim wore a fierce Anine Bing crew neck paired with the muted luxury of Prada loafers. Marsh Hall roared with applause. After a quick introduction, Nwodim presented an hour-long comedy set driven by audience interaction and personal anecdotes. 

“Ego made the audience feel like a friend group,” said Crawford Arnow ’27. “She rolled with the punches and all of her jokes landed. I was laughing head-back the entire time.”

He added that the show felt both very polished and audience-driven. As a fellow performer, Arnow commended Nwodim’s skill as an entertainer.

Upon her entrance, Nwodim entertained by poking fun at her college experience at the University of Southern California and her Nigerian-American upbringing. As a biology major turned comedian, Nwodim joked about her family’s expectation that she pursue medicine.

After one student shouted, “this is a biology lecture hall!”, in response to Nwodim discussing her college major, she responded to the comment and many others to make the show feel like a conversation. Boos filled the room after Nwodim revealed she minored in business. The front rows occasionally joined with snappy comments as the crowd became part of the performance.

Nwodim’s set took place the day after Valentine’s day, so she eventually addressed the much-anticipated topic of dating. She joked about failed relationships and the difficulties of dating as a comedian.

“We wanted the show to be around Valentine’s Day,” said YCC Events Director Olivia Lombardo, “And the themes in the comedy show reflected dating at college, and Ego’s own personal experiences.” 

Another highlight from the show was when Nwodim drew one of her ex boyfriends on the board, prompting laughter. She joked about having low standards in men, and outlined some of her expectations from potential boyfriends.

Tickets for the event were free, and Lombardo recalled an “overwhelmingly positive” reaction from students to the event. 

Devin Thomas ’27, event lead for the YCC Comedy Show, said that there was a very high demand for tickets. 

“Tickets sold out within an hour, and over 100 tickets were sold in the first minute,” he said. “All 11 students who rated the event gave it five stars.”

Ego Nwodim has been performing for SNL since 2018.

The post SNL comedian Ego Nwodim performs at Yale, discusses self-discovery and dating appeared first on Yale Daily News.

For many students, formals are a memorable part of the Yale experience — but it is unusual for every class to have one. This year’s formals have had their fair share of firsts, including subsidized ticket prices.

An integral part of the planning is the creative decision-making process. 

“I think the most difficult aspect of formal planning is finding a theme that not only everyone will love, but also fits the venue,” said Karen Yang ’26, the Sophomore Class Council’s vice president of creativity and concepts. 

According to Jalen Bradley ’27, the First-Year Class Council’s board discussed themes before voting for their favorite. Once they had decided on the theme, they began searching for student DJs and a string quartet. 

This year, “Celestial Garden” won the FCC board’s vote. According to Bradley, the committee tried not to reuse themes or choose ones that were similar to other classes’ or residential colleges’ formal themes. The current theme combines the ideas of “Enchanted Garden” and “Celestial Bodies.”

“We all want to make the First Year Formal memorable,” said Carrie Lange ’27, who is responsible for organizing the decorations for the event.

While Lange said she would like to keep the specifics of the decor a surprise, she encouraged attendees to interpret the formal however they wished. Noting that guests should wear whatever they like, she said that the theme “Celestial Garden” is intentionally open-ended.

On Friday, Jan. 26, the Sophomore Class Council hosted its first formal since 2022, changing the trend of sophomores not having a formal.

According to Sophomore Class President and YCC Health and Accessibility Director Mimi Papathanasopoulos ’26, SoCo wanted to host a formal because the class does not have many opportunities to convene in its entirety. She also said that planning a formal is a significant undertaking.

SoCo planned the formals over months, negotiating with contractors, searching for performers and sorting out safety issues. Ultimately, the committee planned an event that included drinks and desserts, live music and photo booths.

The Sophomore Formal theme, “Rhapsody in Blue,” was chosen through a Google Form sent to the class in early November. The survey collected theme ideas, music suggestions and refreshment preferences. 

Joana De La Torre ’26, vice president of operations for SoCo, said that deciding on a theme meant balancing creativity and feasibility. Deliberating on unique themes that would be realistic to plan, Vice President of Marketing and Communications Avery Dewitt ’26, said the council debated four or five different themes before settling on “Rhapsody in Blue,” a piece by George Gershwin. This year marks the piece’s centennial anniversary.

“Our goal is to ensure our capacity is as large as it can be,” said Olivia Lombardo ’25 of events hosted by YCC.

The Omni Hotel is the only venue in New Haven with a capacity of 1,000, and SoCo aimed to guarantee that all interested sophomores were able to attend. SoCo also chose the hotel because the First Year Formal is always held in Schwarzman Center. Thus, they felt a new location would be a refreshing change. The junior class formal will also be held in the Omni Hotel with a “Bridgerton Ball” theme.

In an effort to appreciate student groups on campus, SoCo chose The Yale Undergraduate Jazz Collective and the band Public Discourse to perform at the event. DJ Chris Rush also had a set at the Sophomore Formal.

The junior formal will also showcase performances by members of groups such as the Berkeley College Orchestra, Davenport Pops and the Yale Ballroom Dance Team.

Ticket prices for this year’s FCC formal have been reduced from the regular price of $15 to $5. 

“The subsidization is from the Dean’s Office, which was 22k dollars that went to the formal,” said Andrew Boanoh ’27, current FCC President.  “People have reached out personally to say that 5 dollars was financially troublesome as well, and we provided aid to anyone with that need.”

Echoing that sentiment, Papathanasopoulos said that the community’s response to the subsidization of ticket prices was overwhelmingly positive, noting that tickets for the formal sold out.

Lombardo, the YCC events director and former beat reporter for the News, said that the council’s events board is very collaborative in budget planning. She said that advocating for subsidized pricing has been a years-long process, giving particular mention to each class’s president and council for working together to make the change happen.

“It was so exciting to be able to showcase our amazing student groups,” said Papathanasopoulos. “We loved seeing our class rocking it on the dance floor.”

The First Year Formal will be held on Feb. 23.

The post Class formals to highlight student performers appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Don’t get me wrong, civil discourse is crucial to maintaining a decent society, but sometimes politics more closely resemble a chimpanzee colloquium. This year, we should focus our dinner conversation on what is really important — poultry politics.

Later this month, two special birds will make their pilgrimage from Minnesota to the White House for the National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation. There, a renowned poultry expert from Delaware, who also happens to be the President of the United States, Joe Biden will perform the important task of naming the two birds. His names thus far have been Peanut Butter and Jelly, and Chocolate and Chip. After they are bestowed with their magnificent names, one of these two turkeys will receive the gift of life and avoid its brethren’s grim fate. President Biden will issue this special bird a Presidential Pardon, endowing it with godlike status as the most important American political figure of all: The Pardoned Turkey. While the other turkey will also be spared from the death penalty, it must serve life imprisonment at a children’s farm.

Many animals have been gifted to and named by American Presidents. Calvin Coolidge was gifted two lion cubs which he named Budget Bureau and Tax Reduction, a bear he named ‘Bruno’ and a Thanksgiving raccoon he spared and called Rebecca.

On Nov. 19, 1963, President Kennedy became one of the first presidents to spare a turkey, an absolute unit that weighed 55 lbs and outlived him. He pardoned the turkey just three days before his assassination! However, it was not JFK, the Harvard graduate, whose genius devised the title of The Pardoned Turkey. Renowned Yalie George H.W. Bush was the first President to formally pardon a turkey in 1989. While the first Bush didn’t name his turkey, another Yalie did. Bill Clinton named his first pardoned turkey Tom, establishing naming as an integral part of the National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation. George W. Bush, the third Yalie in a row, continued this tradition, cementing it as a longstanding institution in American culture.

Of course, the Yale-pardoned Turkeys had the best names. Clinton chose elegant names, such as, Carl, Harry The Turkey, and — who could forget — Jerry The Turkey. Carl was such a turkey-ish turkey that he required no title. Clinton’s 1997 Pardoned Turkey was even more of an absolute unit than JFK’s, weighing 60 lbs. George W. Bush thought of witty pairs, such as Stars and Stripes, Biscuits and Gravy, May and Flower, and Liberty and Freedom. 

In typical Harvard fashion, President Obama miserably failed with his Pardoned Turkeys. He named his first turkeys Courage and Carolina, which don’t go together. The 2010 birds didn’t even survive until the next Thanksgiving. And he blatantly stole Bush’s name of ‘Liberty’ in 2011.

So it’s time for Yalies to name the turkeys again! By surveying the campus community, we have gathered some top recommendations: Salt and Pepper, Phineas and Ferb, Sterling and Bass, SpongeBob and Patrick, Biscuits and Gravy and Chicken and Waffles. We hope President Biden takes our data-based, expert opinions into consideration. While Saturday will tell which school is better at football, we know for certain Yale has superior turkey names.

The post The Pardoned Turkeys appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Outside of Morse and Stiles, athletes have a surprisingly weak grip on the Yale social scene, a stark contrast from the larger national culture. At most American colleges, athletes are worshiped by militant cheerleader squads and are soundtracked by armies of marching bands blasting their generic battle cry: “Go sportsball!” But at the Yale Bowl, high school try-hards are loud, and the hierarchies of high school have quieted down.

We do things differently at Yale. While doing pushups may impress our less developed Harvard counterparts, our preferred liberal arts party trick seems to be a debate over Foucault. We give clout to slam poetry nights and “Hamlet” performances. Yalies swarm the Davenport dining hall and barter with Fizz scalpers just to listen to DPops and the Yale Symphony Orchestra. And a cappella rush easily rivals that of a Southern sorority. Our main it-people are not hockey jocks but the Whiffenpoofs in their fancy tails. Meanwhile, Payne Whitney athletes’ most loyal audiences are the die-hard sports fans lying six feet under in the nearby Grove Street Cemetery. 

While it makes sense to focus on academics and the arts at an educational institution, it comes with some unfortunate side effects. You can’t have a conversation here without an unnecessary Descartes name-drop. Yalies claim to be more deserving of their acceptance than an athlete because they — or their parents — “worked hard for it,” while athletes only got in “because they can throw a ball.” Let’s see how smart we all are when we’re dressed head-to-toe in Yale blue — or not dressed at all — and Googling how football works.

Don’t get us wrong — we’re both tenants of the same dusty corner during gym class. We spent high school poring over books and reworking our college spreadsheet. One of us was a try-hard artsy kid and the other spent every weekend at debate tournaments. We’ve found comfort in the Yale community, a break from the stereotypes of high school. This is the exact life our high school selves strived for. Everyone’s path to Yale was different. Someone might not have shared the same struggles as us. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t struggle to get here. While some of us were studying for the SAT or playing our instruments, others were staying after practice running extra laps or trying to get that dive just right. One does not invalidate the other.

So, why should we care about The Game? We could say it’s about the camaraderie or a way to fulfill our innate competitive spirit. Perhaps it’s our way of pushing Harvard to finally improve itself. But a better reason to care is because it gives us a chance to enjoy the exceptional, diverse talent of our community, and thank our athletes for all of their hard work. 

This Saturday, let’s stop degrading people who would beat us at things. Not all of us are football players. We don’t have to be; we can just cheer on those who are. We must accept that we can’t be the best at everything in order to truly appreciate the value of our peers’ gifts. So let’s leave the competitive stereotypes, hierarchies and the ridiculous us-versus-them mentality behind us. 

Except for our superiority over Harvard. They can’t sit with us.

FAITH DUNCAN is a first year in Saybrook College. Contact her at faith.duncan@yale.edu. 

ALI OTUZOGLU is a first year in Silliman College. Contact him at ali.otuzoglu@yale.edu.

The post DUNCAN & OTUZOGLU: Athlete appreciation day appeared first on Yale Daily News.

From the tyranny of Google Calendar to the uncomfortable abundance of mass emails with meme attachments, Yale’s work culture has shocked me on various levels. Despite my self-contempt at deeming these comparatively normal, what I am most surprised by is the positivity epidemic in professional spaces.

I have had my fair share of seeing people trying to market their work as quirky and relatable. Seeing my Head of College being showered with flour by students on a TikTok was unexpected. Not to mention Yale professors’ go-to tactic of mentioning Taylor Swift to clickbait students into consuming memeified academic content. There was a “friendly” filter over quite formal affairs — something I am not used to.

This warm glow is definitely not universal. In Türkiye, where I am from, only serious disciplinary action warrants an administrator conversing with a student. In Switzerland, where I went to boarding school, networking comes in the form of distant politeness and an inviolable business formal dress code. But at Yale, incessant positivity and over-familiarity mark every interaction.

During the social battlefield of freshman orientation, everyone spoke as if they were reading from a script or template. Many peers and executives had molded their personality into two or three cookie cutter interests, their passions and goals reduced into marketable resume bullet points. I did get that no one owed anyone sincerity in a professional setting, but never had I ever seen pretension perfumed with such excessive friendliness.

Making connections felt like gathering tokens in a social game. I imagined the college experience to be about meeting new people and fostering relationships with professors rather than just studying 24/7. But being new to American culture, I could not help but always feel excluded. There were some people that managed to enter a room and immediately bond with everyone. I would speak twice and politely leave. 

To adapt in my first two months in the United States, I believe I have mastered the subtle art of Yale formal introductions. There is a bizarre formula to be learned: a niche compliment paired with the sharing of a quirky hobby, followed by the secondary detail of one’s professional qualifications. To get acquainted means learning about how a program director adores their weekly 6 p.m. tango class or has a huge passion for orientalist embroidery. Their work seems like a footnote.

Since professional relationships appear more friendly here than anywhere else I’ve been, the lines blur between companionship and networking, between humanitarianism and marketing. Seminars feel like pageants, and professional gatherings are popularity contests.

To me, honesty is the purest form of kindness. I am still a tourist at noticing corporate friendliness, and switching on my 9-to-5 cold grin. Having seen the pretentious altruism of the American professional world, I realized that I much prefer a blunt “no” to forced courtesy. I would much rather be told that I cannot contact someone outside of working hours than be told that I can ask for help whenever and not get a response.

I do acknowledge my hypocrisy. The professors who give me guidance feel like valuable mentors. But when they help others and do not connect with me, it feels like nepotism. Perhaps I am overly critical, but maybe there is no need for there to be much sincerity in a professional setting in the first place. Why can’t everyone do their work and move on with their day, without having the need to tirelessly expand their network?

So, what if we all just started being more honest with each other? What if we based professional success not by exclusive communities and the span of one’s network, but rather through measurable skills? It’s that or I just might have to schedule a meeting with one of my 20 wellness mentors.

ALI OTUZOGLU is a first year in Silliman College from Türkiye. Contact him at ali.otuzoglu@yale.edu.

The post OTUZOGLU: Why I hate American professionalism appeared first on Yale Daily News.