Meet Diana Arguijo, an incoming Alspaugh dorm resident from Rindell, North Carolina (just 30 minutes from Duke). This interview is part of a summer blog series profiling one Class of 2018 member from each of the 13 East Campus dorms. Look out for the rest of the blogs on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays leading up to Orientation Week.
Major: Biomedical engineering (Pratt)
Pre-orientation: None
Summer plans: "Mostly just being at home with my family, enjoying the last few days I’ll have here. Working and babysitting."
Favorite type of weather: "I really like rainy days. I think they're really calming."
Favorite book or literary work: Harry Potter — especially the fifth one. "I was in the second grade when I started the entire series. My sister gave it to me as a birthday present."
Spirit animal: Owl. "I think flying is really cool and they're always portrayed as academic creatures."
Guilty pleasure: "Netflix marathons — the last one I couldnt stop watching is 'House of Cards.' I marathoned that like crazy."
Impressions from first visit to Duke: "It was my sophomore year of high school and we visited the school and went on a tour and I just remember feeling at home. This is the place where I wanted to spend all of college at. I remember going to the engineering quad and feeling like, this is it, I really really want to be here."
Things she's excited to try out at Duke: "I want to join the swing dance club. I think it would be a really cool thing to try out. I went to a camp where a lot of people did that just for fun after they had a class. I know a couple of the basic steps."
What I’m most nervous about at Duke: "Probably time management — the rigor of the classes. Being able to balance all that but still join clubs. being able to balance having fun and school is making me quite nervous."
If she could be famous for one thing, what it would be: "I want to become a research scientist so I would love to be famous for finding a scientific cure or a new scientific research."
Weirdest thing she plans to pack: Hot sauce
Essential dorm decorating item: "Probably posters. I don’t like bare walls. I’m going to buy them for Duke, but I haven't picked them out yet—I have a couple on the Amazon waiting list. One by an artist called Banksy. He paints on a brick wall a homeless man and it says, 'Keeps your coins, I want change."
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.