testimony

“Yet, I cannot help but wonder what would have happened had I chosen to go home. How it would have ripped apart the facade of equality and forced. As faces vanished from zoom calls and canvas discussion boards, I recognized that some of my friends simply did not have the means or the stability to carry on with education in the same way. “

“My name is Shaheer Malik and I am an international student from Pakistan who graduated this spring. After our classes went online due to COVID-19, I decided not to go home like most of my peers and stayed in my off-campus apartment in New Haven. I had wanted to go Read more…

By Students Unite Now, ago

“Rather than spending most of my weeks planning around classes, talks, club meetings, or social gatherings, I explicitly schedule my days around my 19 hours of work every week in order to meet Yale’s SIC.”

“Rather than spending most of my weeks planning around classes, talks, club meetings, or social gatherings, I explicitly schedule my days around my 19 hours of work every week in order to meet Yale’s SIC. It is difficult to justify taking advantage of Yale’s resources when I could instead be Read more…

By Students Unite Now, ago

“Although I worked a campus job that may soon be nonexistent due to the precarious nature of the fall semester, it alone is not enough to cover the SIC and my mother has been working seven-day weeks and twelve-hour shifts for the past two years to make sure that I won’t have to deal with student loan debt in the future.”

Although I worked a campus job that may soon be nonexistent due to the precarious nature of the fall semester, it alone is not enough to cover the SIC and my mother has been working seven-day weeks and twelve-hour shifts for the past two years to make sure that I Read more…

By Students Unite Now, ago

“After facing a four-month waiting period and inconsistent communication with YMHC, the institutional care that was supposed to support me ended up compounded the anxiety I originally had.”

I’ll never forget how nervous I felt during my first YMHC intake appointments. Walking through those doors as a first year student seemed like an admittance of failure, but I knew I needed the care. After facing a four-month waiting period and inconsistent communication with YMHC, the institutional care that Read more…

By Students Unite Now, ago

“I had just come back from study abroad, there was a death in my family, and it was just a really tough time. During the time that I had to wait to get paired with someone, my mental health deteriorated a lot.”

If I had 500 fewer hours in the school year, the first things to go would be taking care of myself and a lot of unpaid extracurriculars. For example, I am one of the student coordinators of FOOT, which is an unpaid job. I put in a lot of time Read more…

By Students Unite Now, ago

“The summer contribution has been stressing me out in recent days — it requires me to work in a paid position, in addition to the current remote work I’m doing, to earn the money in full, which would mean working in retail or food service for part of my summer. Meanwhile, I live with my grandma and I’ve barely left my house in an effort to keep her as safe as possible, and yet I’m expected to contribute that money to my college education.”

The SIC has been frustrating to me, to say the least. The summer contribution has been stressing me out in recent days — it requires me to work in a paid position, in addition to the current remote work I’m doing, to earn the money in full, which would mean Read more…

By Students Unite Now, ago

“It is outrageous to think that any student on Yale’s campus would be prevented from fully taking ownership of their college experience with the magnitude of resources at this institution’s disposal.”

Since joining Yale’s campus, I have had time. I have had time to further my passions on campus that I had energetically carried with me from high school as well as the time to explore new avenues of interest. I have been able to juggle working in a science laboratory, Read more…

By Students Unite Now, ago