Moving On

Julianna Dudas felt like she was wasting her time.

After an injury in late October of 2000 ended her cross-country career at Duke, the girl who once described athletics as her life, was left wondering how she would spend the rest of her college years. Despite being heavily involved in her sorority, Kappa Kappa Gamma, and working in the advertising department of The Chronicle, the then-freshman felt extremely unfulfilled at Duke.

"I had no sense of who I was or what direction I wanted to go in," she says. "I was having lots of fun, but I couldn't see myself doing what I was doing for three more years." After her injury, Dudas says, "I got into the art, fashion and music thing. I felt like I needed to do something creative and I was uninspired [at Duke]."

So, in March 2001, Dudas, on a whim, submitted a transfer application to Columbia University in New York, where she is currently enrolled as a sophomore. "People [at Columbia] don't live to be social," says Dudas, who cites the superficiality of Duke's greek population and its tendency to conform to its own social perceptions of what is "cool" as one of the major factors in her departure.

At Columbia, "girls don't wear make-up," she says.

Like virtually all of its elite peer institutions, Duke boasts a high freshman retention rate--97 percent in 2001, according to U.S. News and World Report. Duke prides itself on the spirit of its student body and the loyalty of its alumni, and so Dudas' claims may seem out of the ordinary.

But her criticism--that the Duke student body is more socially obsessed and less academically motivated than students at other top-tier schools--has surfaced before and is echoed among students who choose to transfer from Duke's Durham campus.

"Stanford has its share of George W.'s --kids who got in because their parents are wealthy and who barely look at a book as they drink their way through school," writes Rojstaczer in a subsequent e-mail comparing the two schools. "For what it's worth, my guess is that Duke has more George W.'s than Stanford."

Sara Bright, who transferred out of Duke after her freshman year and is currently a junior at Wesleyan University, agreed that the intellectual climate--in and especially out of the classroom--does not seem to be in line with the University's national reputation as an academic powerhouse.

"I was surrounded by a lot of intelligent people, but everyone's energies were going into basketball or the greek system," says Bright, whose oldest sister is a Duke graduate. "I felt like it was a really, really un-intellectual environment and felt this total lack of excitement from [students] about what they were studying."

Lack of intellectual stimulation isn't the only reason a student might choose to transfer. "It isÉ my impression that students leave for a variety of reasons, including a desire to be closer to a boyfriend, girlfriend or their family, or even because of athletic interests--they feel they will have a greater opportunity to play their sport at another school," writes Wasiolek.

Sophomore Jesse Hicks, who also transferred to Columbia this year, says he left in part because of factors beyond Duke's control, namely location.

"I wanted a big-city life all along, and I didn't really realize it until I was actually at Duke," he says. "I think you can get a lot more out of college than just your classroom experience. New York City offers so many opportunities."

Hicks says Columbia's location affords its students more of an opportunity to both take full course loads and do intellectually productive activities, such as interning.

However, Hicks, a former member of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity, pointed to Dudas' and Bright's criticism in further explanation of his reasons for transfer. "A lot of [my reason for leaving] was the frat scene--there wasn't much else to do," he says. "I didn't know as much as I should have applying here."

Financial constraints motivated sophomore Jeremiah Wander to leave Duke for North Carolina State University. Though the University was giving Wander some financial aid, he would have graduated with $80,000 in student loans and, to him, it wasn't worth it. "For what I study--computer engineering--[N.C.] State is as good, if not better than Duke, and it costs a fraction of the price," he says.

Wander says if it had been financially feasible, he would have stayed at Duke. But given his circumstances, leaving seemed best. "I had a great time, good classes, but I didn't see anything that separated it from a state school. What I liked about Duke was my friends--and you can make friends anywhere," he says.

Though lack of intellectual stimulation was not one of the key factors in Wander's decision, the punk rock fan, musician and ultimate frisbee player does believe that the concern is a legitimate one for Duke students.

"I sort of found a niche at Duke that was intellectually diverse, and so I found it intellectually stimulating. But others certainly haven't," he says. "I admit that in its entirety, it's not, but for me, it was."

Wander adds, "N.C. State is not intellectually stimulating, but it feels a lot easier to be whoever you want to be here. There's so many people, you can be who you want to be and there will be people cool with that."

Sophomore Jonas Swartz decided to stay at Duke despite having many of the same reservations about the University's social culture as his peers who decided to leave. He agrees that students at Duke are far too concerned with how they present themselves to other students.

Swartz, a Benjamin N. Duke scholar and Durham native, applied for transfer admission to Stanford and Wesleyan last year and was accepted at both. In the end, he decided to stay after being offered the opportunity to be the Blue Devil mascot--one of his childhood dreams. "I was excited about opportunities here that would take a while to develop somewhere else," he says.

William Chafe, dean of the faculty of arts and sciences, admits that lack of intellectual stimulation may cause some students to transfer.

Still, he says, "There is enormous intellectual vitality at Duke, but it requires a supportive environment to flourish. That is what we are striving to provide with our new curriculum and residential life program, especially the encouragement of academic foci in the new residential system."

Back at Duke for Homecoming Weekend, Dudas strolled the Main West Quadrangle on a Friday night, revisiting many of the fraternities that had defined her social life the previous year. This was Dudas' second time visiting the campus this school year. In late August, she had come to Durham before heading to New York, and was distraught about the prospect of starting anew.

Reflecting on her night back the second time around, Dudas has a distinctly different point of view. "No, I don't miss this at all," she says. "I have no regrets."