Duke University

Date: Jun 06 2011
Major: Psychology (This Major's Salary over time)
Duke has been an amazing experience all around. I decided between a few schools, including several top Ivy's. I choose Duke because I thought the students were the most balanced and friendly. I now am so glad I did. You can do anything here. If you are an academic, great. A social butterfly, great! An athlete, great. No one seems to care and everyone seems to find their group and all groups tend to get along well. Let's not kid ourselves, Basketball is big! But instead of creating a separation between athletes and the other 98% of us, it helps the community come together and is a source of pride and school spirit. I have a number of athletes in my classes, and they are just like everyone else. The student body is awesome. They are all unique and balanced people. I thought the school would be all pre-meds, pre-law or pre-bankers. I was wrong. They are pre-anything. The campus is just beautiful, the weather much better than Ivy's, the teachers awesome and the social life diverse and vibrant. Durham is just OK, but there is so much to do here or Chapel Hill, it doesn't matter. I was surprised at the focus on the arts, music and the humanities here. Students help each other out, and while the classes are demanding, I have never felt like the next guy was stabbing me in the back. If anything, students and faculty go out of there way to help. In spite of being in NC, there are a lot of people from the northeast and all over the country/world. I plan to study abroad next year, and it is here where Duke is just awesome. There are lots of choices, and my friends who came back loved their experiences. The flexibility to study in a variety of areas makes students well rounded. The administration is friendly and red tape kept to a minimum. I have heard that career placement is excellent and graduate school placement even better. Not there yet. When I turned down Princeton and Yale to go to Duke, some of my friends asked why. I now can give them a thousand good reasons. No regrets and I will be very sad to leave. In hindsight, now I can not imagine going anywhere else.