The City of New Haven
Halfway between Boston and New York City, New Haven offers great places to live in varied neighborhoods, a wide range of social, cultural, arts, and recreational opportunities: award-winning theaters, world class museums and galleries, exciting nightlife at clubs and pubs, diverse restaurants, cafes, and markets, wonderful parks and recreational areas, public schools nationally recognized for their reform efforts, and great shopping with national chains and local specialty stores. You and your family and friends can explore and get involved in your city, with many events for free or at graduate student discounts.
The Yale Campus
Yale’s tree-lined campus in New Haven, Connecticut, has housed “a company of scholars and a society of friends” for over 250 years.
Today it’s also home to one of the world’s largest research libraries, several of the most comprehensive global art collections, and over one million square feet of laboratory research space.
Yale’s campus is known for its iconic buildings designed by noted architects, particularly the Georgian-style and Gothic Revival buildings in Old Campus, as well as the more modern buildings such as the marble- and granite-paned Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library and Eero Saarinen’s distinctive Ingalls Rink (a.k.a. “The Whale”).
The Yale University Art Gallery, the Yale Center for British Art, and the Peabody Museum of Natural History are active centers of undergraduate teaching and research on campus.
The Jackson School of Global Affairs is located in two stately mansions along Hillhouse Avenue, just steps away from Science Hill, the School of Management and Yale’s two newest residential colleges.
Housing Options
New Haven has been called a “city of neighborhoods,” each with residential, shopping and recreation areas and distinctive histories. You can find housing options in neighborhoods that meet your needs, whether you want downtown excitement, leafy residential areas, or waterfront views, modern amenities, or historic charm. Many students live in one neighborhood, and use the parks, shops, cafes and bars in other New Haven neighborhoods regularly.
Yale graduate students have many options for affordable, comfortable, and convenient places to live in greater New Haven while at Yale. You can live on-campus, in Yale-owned off-campus apartments, or in off-campus apartment buildings and homes in several neighborhoods. While most graduate students live on or near campus in New Haven, some live in surrounding towns and commute to campus.
Many Yale graduate and professional students who choose to live off-campus in the city of New Haven find attractive and affordable housing in the neighborhoods bordering or closest to the main Yale campus in downtown New Haven. The close-to-Yale neighborhoods include the following areas, with various names or nicknames listed, and are served by the Yale Shuttle:
- Downtown, the Central Business District, including the Green, the Historic Nine Squares and Ninth Square. Most of the Yale main and medical Campus is considered in or near Downtown New Haven.
- East Rock – called East Rock, Prospect Hill, Science Hill, Upper State Street, SoHu (South of Humphrey), “Grad Haven” and historic Goatville
- Dwight, Howe-Edgewood, Upper Chapel, Chapel West and West River
- Wooster Square, our Little Italy with pizza and cafes
Other great New Haven neighborhoods where graduate students live, dine, shop or get outdoors are listed below. Note that these areas generally are not served by the Yale Shuttle, but can be reached by CT Transit buses, bike lanes and Zipcar.
- Dixwell and Newhallville, including the Whalley Avenue Shopping district
- Fair Haven and the Quinnipiac River area
- The Hill, including City Point and Long Wharf waterfronts, and IKEA
- The East Shore and Morris Cove, including Lighthouse Point Park
- Westville, Westville Village, Amity, and recreational areas at Edgewood and West Rock Parks, the Yale Athletics Fields, and Yale Golf Course
Student Life at Jackson
Jackson students enjoy a vibrant intellectual and social community outside the classroom. Jackson students test new ideas and create community through exciting student-led programming and activities.
With generous funding and support from the Office of Student Affairs, students put on conferences, bring in distinguished guest speakers on a variety of topics, and hold community conversations on pressing local, national and international issues.
Student organizations such as the Jackson Salon, the Global Affair, Jackson Women, and the Yale Journal of International Affairs offer different ways to get involved.