Yale to Steal CS 50—Still Not Harvard (And Never Will Be)

Yale has been stealing Harvard traditions for centuries. Don’t believe me? Well, starting in 1896, Yale plopped a bronze statue of their former president Theodore Woolsey firmly in the middle of the old campus. Sometime after that, people began rubbing his foot for good luck…sound familiar? Yeah, John’s been around for a decade or so longer than his New Haven counterpart. And so, in the words of arguably our generation’s most eloquent poet: “Woolsey, you’re cool and I’m gonna let you finish but our boy John is the 3rd most photographed statue in the country.”

And over a century later, the Elis are at it again. In case you haven’t heard, Yale is planning on “adopting” a version of CS 50 to begin fall 2015 in New Haven. That doesn’t mean they’re taking part of the curriculum, or getting lectures notes from David Malan… no, no, no. It means that Yalies will literally be watching Malan’s lectures on TV in New Haven. And we all know that watching Harvard classes on TV is “Why They Chose Yale.”

Honestly though, Yale adopting CS 50 is a really cool idea. In fact, Yale would do well to steal a couple more things from Harvard going forward. (Though they’ve been trying for years to steal our acceptance rate and our #1 slot – and, no, I’ve never heard of Princeton). First off, there are definitely a couple Gothic buildings around Cambridge that would really add to Yale’s atmosphere. And of course, this article wouldn’t be complete without a poorly placed joke about Yale’s inability to steal a win in The Game. (Don’t worry that Yale still leads the all-time series 65–57).

And finally, since Yale is planning on adding two new residential colleges, they should just go ahead and annex “The Quad” since it’s basically in New Haven anyway.