Dear Dookie,
Hi! I’m a newly admitted student here for Blue Devil Days!! Boy, is Duke swell! I was wondering if you had any advice for a kid picking colleges—potentially a new Dookie! (Is that how you guys—I mean Y’ALL—spell it? Guess so!)
Love, Pumped Pre-Frosh
Dear Freaking Out Freshie,
Hello, and welcome back to the bottom of the totem pole! I don’t really know what advice to give an incoming freshman, because I generally avoid speaking to them and have no idea what type of first world problems they experience. However, I think I can answer all your questions in 30 words or less: Yes, an electrical engineering, Spanish and chemistry triple major is totally doable, you WILL be the smartest kid at Duke and yes, your penis does get bigger in college. Thank GOD, amiright?
Now I suppose you want some selling points of why you should choose Duke. The main reason is its social culture. All top-10 schools have fairly equal academic programs (plus or minus exorbitant grade inflation for the sake of Daddy Donor, cough Harvard cough). What sets Duke apart is life outside of the library—mostly because that life exists. Our innovative merger of “work hard” and “play hard” has garnered us encouraging feedback, as seen in our constant positive media presence. This incessant, untiring national attention, which members of the Duke community often seek out for internally solvable problems, will only increase the value of your future degree.
See, we at Duke are constantly looking to better ourselves. Always a step ahead of our peer institutions, we figure the best way to change culture is not preventive, but in retrospect, by freaking out whenever anyone does anything we deem wrong. A recent example is LDOC. I can assume by the fact that you’re here today that you don’t know what Travis Porter is, because you’re probably not black. Duke is a forward-thinking school, and has black and non-black students come to different “new student weekends.” This innovative approach allows black and white people to justify their self-segregation to themselves once they actually get here. Like I said, we’re always one step ahead.
Anyways. Travis Porter is this famous rap trio that will Bring It Back at LDOC. A timely 47 days after the show was announced, students began caring about Travis Porter’s “sexism.” Keeping with tradition, these feminists and pinnacles for political correctness have decided that diversity is okay as long as it abides by what liberal, rich, white girls like. Now, my guess is that they’ve simply never heard a Travis Porter song, because they’re basically sonnets of women’s empowerment. As a female voice says in one song: “You wanna see some a--, I wanna see some cash. Keep them dollars coming, and that’s gonn’ make me dance.” These are the words of a strong, black woman who don’t need no man. Travis Porter praises such “top-notch b----es”, and in doing so creates an attainable image for women to strive for. I’m fairly certain the whiners are just white (or basically white) biddies who don’t understand rap music. I propose we create a student group—a Coalition for a White People Music-Free Duke—to spread understanding of hip-hop to these trust fund babies. Maybe then these snow bunnies will step out of the sorority house and accept that “Ayy Ladies” is the modern ballad of the empowered woman.
As you’re a pre-frosh and probably still have a desire to learn things, there are a few lessons you can take from this Travis Porter hullabaloo. Perhaps the most important is how highly the Duke intellectual culture values the opinions of others. To think, you can barely have a high school diploma (if that) and write songs that say things like “Run it in that p---y like a crash dummy!” and the Duke student body will still think that your voice is significant and impactful enough to start a protest about. Because we’ve now realized the impression such powerful and respected figures could have on Duke students, next year’s LDOC will be headlined by Barney and Friends and Steve from Blue’s Clues, so as to promote a positive learning experience.
But Duke isn’t just about equality in the social scene. Administratively, we are also constantly creating an accepting social climate, even for those students most down on their luck or without knowledge of laws or basic morals. Why, just this past week we allowed a suspected sex offender to run for DSG office! I mean, neither we nor DSG have any way to prove that he actually committed those crimes, but we’re, like, pretty sure. It’s not like anything bad has come of hasty allegations in the past. Either way, look at it as a reflection of our accepting community. Not only do we not expel sexual assault perpetrators, but we also don’t hold rapists to any different standards than regular students. This is the dream of equality that Martin Luther King, Jr. had in mind.
I know I’ve made a convincing case to come to this school. But really, thank Duke students and administrators. This college community works hard every day to make this reality possible. And this openness and community building doesn’t just make life enjoyable and constantly entertaining for the Duke student body. It also impacts the pre-frosh, like you, choosing a college in an increasingly competitive market. Certainly, that’s something we Dukies never forget.
The Dookie looks forward to the Class of 2017, mostly because in light of recent events, there will be no women or racial minorities in it. Now if we could just think of something to deal with the gays. … Follow the Dookie on Twitter @DearDookie.
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