It was a bleak Friday morning on Duke’s campus. The ravages from midterm week were visible in buildings and dormitories from East to West, as victims of the disaster sought shelter and food as they made their way out of their examination rooms.
“It’s been brutal,” one student said after getting out of his Physics 152 midterm. “I prepared for stuff about potential and capacitance but I had no idea that they were gonna hit us with stuff about Faraday’s Law too.”
After crying behind Perkins and telling everyone it was allergies, he went to Krafthouse to eat a burger and fries alone in a booth, as his stench from not having showered all week drove away most of his friends. His plan for the rest of the evening was to drink terrible, warm beer in his apartment on central and fall asleep by 8 p.m. on his roommate’s futon.
Psych majors who’d taken Stat 325 on Thursday spent all of Friday binge-eating and watching Netflix, after notifying their family members that they’d made it through the exam safely and with only minimal damage to their health. The tailgate in the afternoon was packed with Global Health and Public Policy majors, as well as juniors who were angry they weren’t at Oktoberfest with all of their real friends.
In another extremely unpredictable turn of events, the University of Miami’s football team defeated Duke with a 31-6 victory. Coach Cutcliffe tried to comfort his team, trying to explain to them that there was nothing they could have done to prepare for such an unexpected catastrophe.
“None of my calculations gave me any reason to worry that something like this would happen,” he claimed. “I think the university as a whole needs to acknowledge that these independently occurring disasters are part of a bigger problem. We’re just not good at football.”
On Saturday, forecasts for an even harder midterm week drove hordes of students to the fourth floor of Perkins, and humanities majors who’d spent the week napping took to Snapchat to complain about how they had to spend beautiful day indoors studying.
“70 degrees outside and I’m stuck in 3rd floor Bostock,” read the caption of one student’s snap on her Snapstory. “It’s really just such a travesty when these things happen. Today would’ve been perfect for day-drinking by the pool in Solis,” she said. “I wish I’d had more of a warning. My professor only told us three weeks ago!”
The nearing of Fall Break added another factor to the already disastrous situation, with groups of students who’d planned “super adventurous” road trips around North Carolina to “do something different” with their breaks realized that most Airbnb’s have already been booked by other students doing the exact same thing.
“Oh my God, we’re going to have to stay in a hotel instead of in an artsy cabin in the middle of the woods,” one student told his friends as he entered into panic. The group was devastated by how much less cool the aesthetic of their photo ops would be. One of them had even purchased large amounts of film for her Polaroid camera, which would evidently have to wait until her next themed mixer.
Many complained that, throughout the hardship, Duke was not providing adequate resources and materials that were needed to get through the tragedy.
“I pay seven ga-jillion dollars to go to this school and they really can’t figure out a decently functioning wifi?” one student lamented in a text to his girlfriend. “I know, babe, I’ve almost smashed my computer like six times in the last hour,” she responded sympathetically.
Vegans are going through particularly rough times, as their increased energy consumption after days of little rest and lots of studying has made them increasingly weak and cranky and more apt to complain about their lives on the Fix My Campus Facebook page.
In response, West Union has offered to changed almost absolutely nothing about their menus and ingredient choices, and vegans have been forced to eat the exact same meal at Sprout every day while all the other kids fight with each other to get in the pasta line.
Although these have been trying times for Duke, the semester is only halfway over, and many professors are still unsure about how much more they’re going to torture their students with exams and papers.
“I mean, their homework has generally been pretty easy over the last few chapters, and they did well on the first midterm, so I might make their second one just ridiculously hard,” one math professor said. “I don’t know. It’s impossible to predict. Nothing they can really do to prepare.”
The decrease in humidity that started over the weekend offered a relief to some students, who finally felt grateful and happy to be on such a beautiful campus right on the brink of a refreshing fall season.
“It was so beautiful outside I decided to walk to West instead of take the bus,” one freshman said. “For a moment, I felt really happy to be at Duke. But next week I have three midterms, a paper and a group project, so I’m sure it’s just that time of the season.”
Daniela Flamini is a Trinity junior. Her column runs on alternate Mondays.
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Daniela Flamini is a Trinity junior. Her column runs on alternate Mondays.