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As a Duke student, getting flooded with emails is something I’m familiar with. But as a senior this year, a new type of email has made its way into my inbox: emails about giving to Duke. We are asked repeatedly to donate money, with incentives including Chapel climbs, being able to pick where our money goes, and the refrain that even one dollar counts.
As a second-semester senior, it is hard not to be reflective about my time at Duke. With graduation a few months away, I have been looking back at what I have done here and trying to discern what I still want to do. So picture me a few weeks ago, on the first night of black tenting, lying in my sleeping bag, shivering, in the fetal position, listening to my tent get hounded with rain, and repeatedly asking myself, Is this really how I make the most of my senior spring?
On Saturday, I was one of the many people who crowded into Cameron Indoor for a Duke vs. Virginia matchup that did not disappoint. I jumped, I screamed, and I sweated profusely. It felt, as it often does in Cameron, that everyone was united as a Duke community.
There are several topics of conversation that accompany the start of spring semester (tell me more about abroad, juniors), but perhaps the biggest is the recruitment process for the Interfraternity Council, Panhellenic Association, and Selective Living Groups that takes place every January. In my years at Duke, I have seen just how valuable membership to a Greek organization or SLG can be. They provide built-in community. They facilitate mentor-mentee relationships between older and younger undergraduates and they provide opportunities to meet people on campus you might never have met otherwise.
In one of my classes this semester, my professor handed us an advertisement and told us to “problematize” it—to point out any ethical flaws we might notice. The ad featured a white college student hugging two young black children, with a caption about “future leaders” and “a more just world.” A group of my classmates and I pointed out some of the problematic elements of the ad: the power dynamics of the white student and the black children, the implications of the words “leaders” and “just,” and the general notions of white saviorism, voluntourism and privilege that the ad reinforced.
The “last” of anything has a certain romantic quality to it. Coming into my last year at Duke, I was determined to make it the symbolic, “out-with-a-bang” ending that senior year of college seems to deserve. I had been briefed by friends who already graduated: “Live it up! Say yes to everything! Take cool classes! Go see guest speakers! Explore Durham! Focus on good vibes!” It was advice I was intent on taking.
This Thursday, Nov. 1, is the early decision deadline for high school seniors applying to join the Duke Class of 2023. According to the Undergraduate Admissions website, applying early decision, or ED, is “suited for students who are sure Duke is their first choice, who have established strong and consistent academic records throughout secondary school and who will have completed all the required standardized testing by early November.” Early decision is also binding—if you get accepted early to Duke, you come to Duke. Last year, with a pool of 4,090 applicants, the ED acceptance rate was 21.4 percent. This was significantly higher than the regular decision acceptance rate of 6.4 percent. While this disparity is often attributed to a higher concentration of quality applicants in the ED pool, I once heard an admissions officer say at an information session, “Are there some people from the regular decision pool who would have gotten in early decision? Yeah, probably.”
It’s not a secret that Duke can suck. In my three years as a student, there have been multiple incidents of bias and hate targeted at a number of marginalized groups, from graffiti to death threats and back again. There have been administrative actions—or inactions—that make significant parts of the Duke community feel unwelcome and unsafe. And the social culture at Duke is riddled with self-segregation, gender violence, and a suffocating pressure to be perfect.
Job fairs have never been my thing. As I walked around Wilson Gym in my suit last Wednesday, I was embarrassingly sweaty and incredibly flustered. I was afraid I would look stupid when I tried to talk to recruiters. I felt unqualified for most of the positions being advertised. I convinced myself that my resume wouldn’t stand out. And I was mad at myself for not having a better idea of what kind of job I wanted.
I stumbled upon my first sociology class my freshman spring and was immediately smitten. I used to call my mom from the first floor of Perkins to gush about my readings, and to me, that was a sign that sociology was something I should pursue. So I decided to major in sociology because I liked it. And when you come to Duke, you should study something you like, right?
“I have no idea how I got in here.”
