When people visit Yale, they often gravitate towards the Beinecke Library, they often go to Sterling Memorial Library. They explore the Yale University Art Gallery or the various museums dispersed within New Haven. However, the building I will never forget is the library where I spent countless hours studying, sitting at the tables where I spilled a cup of coffee from Common Grounds, held mock debates, and met the most incredible people.
Trumbull Library.
I couldn’t focus on the capstone project, I couldn’t even think of anything in particular. The Yale Young Global Scholars Program houses students from more than 150 different countries. The only thing uniting us is our identical expressions: a blend of exhaustion and determination.
The first time I sat in Trumbull Library, I was furiously cramming for the YYGS capstone project. Or at least trying to. All I could hear was the brusque English from the Senegalese kid sitting to my right, my capstone partner from Peru speaking in perfect Chinese, and my broken Danish asking the kid to my left to upload a selfie for our introduction slide. Trumbull remains the most beautiful library I have ever seen. The light from the windows filled the bookshelves and washed the weariness from the faces next to me, revealing them as they were when they first entered Yale, eager for the college experience. I watched that light suffuse the library like honey, watch it smudge the furrowed brows of highschoolers carefully crafting their presentations, turn sweat from concentrated foreheads into a radiant glow, reveal a heavenly aura from the clouds of dust as students pull ancient texts from the shelves of Trumbull library.
Faith, YYGS 2024, USA