What's in a name but everything in its world?

It's surprising to realize how influential a name can be. While Shakespeare may have said, "What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet" underlining the arbitrary nature of names, our nature is to give meanings and definitions to labels. Why else would we name things but to describe, categorize, and ultimately stereotype? It means something because society gives it meaning, and while we may personally choose to discard and disregard it, the meaning still exists within others and thus has power.

Yale. Ivy League. This name carries so much weight and authority because of its history, its alumni, hell its bank account. It's (in)famous in America with its hallowed halls and prestige. As a member, an association to Yale, I bear some of its heavy weight. I get pigeonholed as an intellectual, a future leader, an elitist. I chose those associations from outsiders the moment I sent in my checked card senior year in high school. But I didn't know how far it would go.

I came here to London partly to leave the Yale name. I know, pretty stupid since I got the internship through a Yale program and would be living with Yalies . But I thought at the very least my London world would be somewhat detached from my Yale one. My boss took me around the office to introduce me to my coworkers. "This is Leang , our YALE intern," flouting me around as if I were the newest, hottest, most expensive toy on the market. I was their iPhone--limited supplies with a 2 year waiting list and a hefty price tag; but I can do it all: research, debate, slice and dice in one simple motion! It irked me that they were boasting my degree, something that I have hesitations to do myself. Whenever someone asks me where I go to school, I say Yale with reservations. Why hide an $180,000 education? That's all someone truly sees, a name, countless other names that come with it in a nice package deal--apple polisher, uppercrust, entitled-- and my coworkers, before even hearing my hello, heard Yale.

Well these were professionals. I guess as an instantaneous boost of credibility doesn't hurt right? At the very least they knew I was somewhat capable. But when Joe (my flatmate) and I told this girl at a pub (she had a tiara on and we had to go talk to her, best idea ever) the name of our university, she was in complete shock and awe. Granted she was gone, blitzed, blasted but she could not stop saying in her British slur, "God you guys must be geniuses!" "Yale, wow!" Flattering yes, but it took quite some time for her to get over it before we could actually converse about something intelligible (like clubbing).

How can an undergraduate class of 5,300 be so homogeneous as to be lumped so easily into a small set of adjectives and nouns? William Deresiewicz, an English professor at Yale, calls us all Ivy retarded, incapable of speaking to any layman due to our bubbled maturation in shells of marble and awards (http://www.theamericanscholar.org/su08/elite-deresiewicz.html).
While the majority's experience with the lower classes may be limited to interactions with the housekeeper, not all of us went to charter schools and drove BMWs as our starter cars. For some, the housekeeper may be a family member or friend. For some, financial aid is not simply an ease but a necessity.

I never saw intelligence as a bragging tool. While I worked hard to develop it, it is never truly mine to take credit. Upbringing, parents, genetics, and resources coupled with my "hard work" acquired the Yale name. Plus there are plenty of incredibly smart people outside of the Ivy League so what gives me or anyone the right to boast such entitlement? What makes us so different?

I heard some of the guys here are using Yale as a pickup line, an ego boosting, pants stuffing attempt to impress and bed girls. It works apparently. I believe if you've got it, flaunt it. No need for false modesty. To paraphrase Kenji Yoshino, Yale Law professor at my class's keynote speech, "Achilles was never modest. He was like, 'I'm Achilles. And I'm the shit.'"

But know what you're bragging. The name doesn't make you any more special--what you do with it does. Just because you're a member of an elite institution doesn't mean you yourself are elite or the world will bestow upon you anything you wish by summoning the name. It's just a name--make something out of it.