the Sam Jackson College Experience

Feb Club is a Yale Tradition. Like all Yale Traditions^TM, it is now steeped in myth and lore... but the basic outline has remained the same. In the month of February, different members of the senior class host parties. Every night. For the month of February. Simple enough, right? You can buy access to the glories of Feb Club for $30, and this year, I think about 800-odd seniors did so. Though most people won't try to make it to all - or most - of the parties, that's a pretty good participation rate.

I find Feb Club to be a rather fascinating institution. It was written about in the NYT and of course is regularly revisted by the campus papers. I know some people who were trying to become Feb Club All-Stars, going to every party without fail, but most have already missed one or two - it's tough, especially Monday nights, or so I am told. I now understand why, when I was an underclassman, seniors were so vacant-looking in seminars during the Spring semester. Actually, I think that's mostly because they're second-semester seniors - but close enough.

While the factual description of Feb Club may sound like scornful debauchery, I don't think that's fair. It's mostly a social occasion, though things vary for sure over the week. A mid-week party is a lot different from Friday or Saturday night, of course. Ultimately, this slice of "party all the time" is pretty unusual for Yale, but I imagine that at other places - especially much larger universities - it's not so unfamiliar. Maybe someone at a 50,000 student school would think I'm crazy for puzzling over Feb Club, although to be fair, it's a little different when the total number of your class peers is so much smaller.

Does your school have similar traditions? What do you think of them? Ultimately, I think the more endearing Yale Traditions for Seniors involve the copious amounts of nakedness that arise in the springtime, when streaking becomes de rigeur. Or something like that. Actually, during winter finals period, too.*

*Harvard also has a lot of traditions about nakedness, but as in so many Harvard-Yale disputes, the folks from Cambridge just can't hold a candle to Yale. Seriously though. It's documented. So are the naked tea parties. And there are, of course, just plain old naked parties. Anyway. I'm disappointed that the Saybrook Strip hasn't done its name justice in recent years, though - they need more Saybrugian spirit.