In my exacerbation of attempting to come up with a topic for my senior column, my roommate asked me the question: how do you see yourself when describing your time at Duke? My response was immediate: taking pictures and jumping up and down at basketball games. I was instantly shocked by my response. Granted, being a photographer has defined much of who I am over the past four years and I've spent innumerable hours devoted to the basketball program, but is that really what defined my existence here? After some consideration I realized that it is not the activities that I've participated in, but the people I have experienced them with that have made my time so remarkable.
The best and worst moments of my life have been at Duke, and in all of those moments my friends have been the ones I cling to through and through. As much as I love Duke and everything it has offered me, it would be a miserable place without my friends beside me. Friends that I have dragged to art museums all throughout Europe. Friends that I can't wait to call the second I have new news about a boy. Friends that walk you home in the dead of night. Friends that endure the drive to Miami with me. Friends that are a part of my "family." Friends that I can shake my booty to Latin music with. Friends that I can travel through Tuscany with. Friends that I can rock the casbah with. Friends that will be the voices in my movies and pose in my photos. Friends that sing Disney songs with me. Friends who drink lots of long island ice teas on cruise ships. Friends that you can always call to vent or cry on. Friends that hang with boys from Kentucky. Friends that give me arbitrary nicknames that I don't understand. Friends that stay with me to edit in The Chronicle till the early hours of morning. Friends that insult you for hours but you still want to spend time with. Friends that, on the worst day of your life, fly to your house to be there.
I can only wish that everyone at Duke could have the memories with my friends that I have had. Thus to ensure you and your friends have a crazy last week, I've devised a new set of graduation requirements to complete. Some are serious, some are not, and only some have to do with hooking up (although feel free to expand).
Contact your favorite professors and tell them goodbye.
Hook up on the Plaza (extra points if the statue is somehow involved). After all, it's "where good things happen."
Tell that person you've been in love with for four years that you love them.
Blast "Get Low" and sing "To the window. to Luol!!"
Watch Bull Durham.
Take Marketplace trays and slide down the hills on East. (Snow optional.)
Contact Herb Neubauer (Crazy Towel Guy) and thank him for his enthusiasm.
Have sex on the stage of Page. Feel free to make it tragic or comedic.
Wear a bathing suit to class. Clothing on top optional.
Pick a charity that you will donate to every year once you start making money. (Mine's the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society)
Pretend to storm the WEL (yes, I will always call it that).
Steal the Duke weather vane over van der Hayden. Grappling hook probably necessary.
Ride the tram in the Duke hospital while making roller coaster noises.
Eat a molten chocolate cake at the WaDuke.
Take pictures in the stacks in your underwear.
Have a meal involving all your favorite foods on campus. (Mine would be lemonade from Chick-fil-A and a brownie sundae from the Loop.)
Hang off the rim in Cameron.
Make a list of 5 friends that you will always keep in touch with.
NEVER EVER FORGET WHERE YOU CAME FROM AND WHAT THIS PLACE MEANS TO YOU. (Not that the annual fund would let you forget.)
Be Duke. Forever.
Lauren Prats is a Trinity senior. She is a current photography associate editor for The Chronicle.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.