Way back in May, President Brodhead ushered me the other graduating students and I off-campus with some real-talk at Baccalaureate:
“If you're living in some city next fall and everyone you know is a former Dukie, that might be fun. But if 10 or 20 years from now you don't know anyone except for your Duke classmates, that will be pathetic. You will not be a cool person; you'll be a shut-in. You will not be a smarty; you will be a dullard.”
He then closed with an English professor’s version of a mic-drop.
“It's been a pleasure to be connected to you. We're disconnecting now. Good luck out there.”
His jarring reference to “disconnection” focused on the communities we build in college and post-collegiate life. But for me, the message held an even deeper relevance to my identity.
Like some of you, perhaps, the chain of events linking me to this University was set in motion decades ago. It started with a random trip my family took to Duke’s campus for an academic conference in the mid-80s. Imagine my parents, a pair of foreign medical grads from India, holding hands with my pudgy brother, aged about 5, as they stumbled into the cathedral that is Cameron Indoor Stadium for the first time. The awe must have been overwhelming. Legend holds that a youthful Coach K was somehow around to greet them, where they proceeded to chat about the wonders of the gastrointestinal tract. For them, Duke was love at first sight.
Fast-forward 13 years. Now, we were preparing to move my brother’s luggage into his new cubicle in Blackwell for his freshman year in 2000—a time where he would ask Coach K at The Marketplace if he remembered his first visit, to which he responded, “You were much cuter back then.” It was at this time I was infected. Rationally or irrationally, the obsession commenced.
The manifestations were simple at first. I stole my brother’s spare Duke gear, rocking way too many oversized Blue Devil t-shirts through elementary and middle school. I changed my AIM screen name to pay tribute to Shane Battier’s “31” (which is still true of my Gmail today, Shane!). As a seventh grader, I snuck into Cameron with a fake mustache and sunglasses to attend my first game vs. Georgia Tech—that unfortunately snapped a 42-game home winning streak, lending credence to my brother’s long-posited theory that I was cursed. Soon, I became a nerdy, overeager TIPster running around West Campus after my freshman year of high school, already staking claim to my favorite dorm in Kilgo.
Then, a fateful email arrived one day in March. Dear Sanjay . Duke Admissions. Reviewed thousands. Highly competitive. Unusually intense. Waitlist.
Duke and I were disconnected before we even got started. In that moment, I understood the danger of molding my identity—and my self-worth—around any institution. A few hours later, I watched with vacant interest as Villanova perhaps fittingly creamed Duke in the Sweet 16, realizing I needed to detach. Easier said than done.
One happy phone call and four roller-coaster years later, I’m once again in the position to redefine my identity without a reliance on Duke. I’m just a bit slower than most of my classmates in growing out of the Gothic Wonderland.
There are some things that won’t change, of course. I’ve taken a page from the obnoxious high school version of myself, rolling into D.C. bars with a backpack emblazoned with a large “D” and inviting loud obscenities from Kansas alumni by celebrating Jabari’s monster dunks.
But other things will. Day by day, month by month, the institution of Duke—the Chapel, the Dillo, the parking tickets—fades into the cobwebs of my memory, throwing the relationships and memories I do remember into sharp relief. With constant gratitude to this University, I’ve transitioned to my next phase of life with the knowledge that Duke did not define me. Rather, in some subtle but meaningful way, I helped define it.
This Gap Year Series in The Chronicle represents the last formal thread keeping me somewhat tethered to the place that has characterized so much of my life. This is my last column and, for my own sake, it’s probably time to move on. Life’s full of baby steps, so here’s one: I’m disconnecting.
Sanjay Kishore, Trinity ’13, is a policy fellow at Families USA in Washington, D.C. This column is the twelfth installment in a semester-long series of weekly columns written on the gap year experience, as well as the diverse ways Duke graduates can pursue and engage with the field of medicine outside the classroom. Send the columnists a message on Twitter @MindTheGapDuke.
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