What Evans Hall Means To Me

Last week, everyone went to Killington to ski. I recently sprained my ankle playing basketball (Yale Health knows me well), so I wasn’t able to partake in a sport that I love. Instead, I found an opportunity to share my love of Yale SOM with applicants at an interview Super Day Q&A. I found this especially exciting because it brought back my own happy memories of being interviewed the Friday before the Super Bowl in 2014” there was the same snow, the same nervousness of being interviewed, and the same question was posed—why Yale SOM?

There are so many reasons I pointed to back then, and they are all still true—even more so now that I have become a member of this community. There is one reason, though, that I choose to share now with people who ask me that I didn’t say in my interview. It’s the building, Evans Hall.

To understand why this building is so important to me, I must share with you the lens through which I see it. I have been blessed with a family whose members pride themselves on learning, curiosity, and always challenging oneself. This, combined with being dyslexic, means that throughout my life I have sought to improve the way I learn, whether that be through methodology or environment. Many of the things that aid my education are beneficial to all. I am supported every day by classmates, the faculty, and staff. I think that being a part of my learning team was one of the most rewarding experiences of my first year. I am so lucky to consider my teammates my friends, and they have taught me more than I could ever have learned alone. I take classes where I get to hear from CEOs. Most recently one was a fellow Brit who listened to what I thought about the current strategy of his company in communicating its direction; it’s an experience that I will always remember.

So knowing this, when I go into a classroom with state-of-the-art technology, when I read the Wall Street Journal in the hall of murals, when I look around the building through its many windows, for one of the few times in my life I feel as though there is no obstacle to my learning.

Evans Hall is not just a building. Evans Hall is my home.