The dilemma.. Every one of us faces it, though some more frequently than others. The question that arises more often than any other at college: Should I do it? Should I go out tonight? Academics vs. a social life: this is the battle that defines our college experience, as we slowly learn and our balance between the two evolves.
We all face this question in some form, though clearly in various degrees of aggressiveness.
For a Frat superstar, the question might be: It's Monday night, and I have two midterms tomorrow morning; should I go to that one-on-one case-race tournament?
For a Pre-med, the question might be: It's Saturday night, and I need to get a head start on studying for my chem quiz in three weeks; should I go to the Nasher for tea and crumpets?
For a football player, the question might be: It's halfway through the fourth quarter and we're in a very close game; should I go to the locker room in between possessions and drink as much vodka as I can before I have to go back in?
Unfortunately for most of us, the answer more often than not is "yes." Now, I'm not saying that we all party and drink as much as we can. I'm saying that we all have our grey area, where going out isn't out of the question. And there's something about this place that makes us cross the boundary more than we probably should. We've become so frustrated about so many things that we are much more inclined to say to ourselves, "what the f-, make your move."
There is a group, however, that is immune to the infection of this University. You may know them as the people you've never seen before. They aren't even found in Bostock. Too social. They're simply locked in their rooms, surfacing only for class, review sessions with the professor and the occasional basketball game.
Perhaps these are the same folk who chose to eat at Whole Foods instead of the Marketplace every day as freshmen, and thus missed out on the poison the rest of us were ingesting on a regular basis.
I'm not saying that these people are dedicated and the rest of us aren't. Everyone at Duke is dedicated, some of us just choose to have a life. If you're a pre-med at Duke, you are automatically at a disadvantage if you plan on ever leaving your room, because you know that a quarter of your class isn't. How can you compete with that?
If you ever plan on taking it easy over the weekend, you're already behind. How is that fair? God created Sunday as a day of rest. And football. These demons choose to disobey God, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna let that bring me down.
Thus, I propose a separation of the school. One part will be for those whose lives revolve around their work, and one part will be for those whose lives are their work. We will refer to them as Duke A and Duke B. This may not seem fair to those in the newly formed Duke B, but they'll keep their mouths shut after a couple wet willies and rumors of atomic wedgies.
For the rest of us, it will be a breath of fresh air. We're all really smart-otherwise we wouldn't be here-so how is it fair for us to be fighting for a B- in a class because a couple of Duke B's screwed the curve? Maybe a 65 out of 100 is actually pretty good, but since the Duke B spent the last two weeks memorizing the textbook, he got a 95.
In Bolivia, a guy could get murdered for messing up a curve like that. In our society, he gets praised. The answer must lie somewhere in the middle, like taking a toe or something. One of the little ones, not the big one. That'd be crossing a line.
Not only are the Duke B's currently cheating us, but they're cheating the companies that hire them. Their 4.0 GPAs look nice, but most of our 3.5's are often more impressive. How is a company supposed to know that? With the new separation of the University, all companies will be able to put true meaning behind those GPAs.
You can't memorize a textbook in the real world. It don't work like that. Trust me, if you could, I would've popped three Adderall and started my reading a long time ago.
The Morning Wood has never seen a Duke B girl before. Tom Segal is furious at the atrocious display of officiating at his high school alumnae basketball game.
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