It was another life, another time, another place. Well, actually, it only feels that way. In reality it was freshman orientation, four years ago, on East Campus. I had just returned from the great freshman field trip downtown, where the Durham Bulls had again proven that baseball can, in fact, be even more boring than what you see on TV.
I was laughing with another newly minted Dukie about what a terrible idea that particular outing had been, when he said something that caught me by surprise. "What do you expect?" he asked. "This is Duke."
I never caught the guy's name, and couldn't pick him out of a lineup if my life depended on it, but that quote has stuck with me. After all, we'd been on campus less than a week. This was before we'd ever had to use Blackboard or seen the new ACES. They hadn't closed the BC walkway yet, Aramark was still pretending it cared and the Edens air conditioning system was as far from our minds as it was from main West Campus.
In short, we didn't have anything to complain about yet. But here this guy was, already expecting the worst from the school he had just decided to attend. I filed the incident in the back of my head, under "aberrational displays of cynicism," and went on to have a quite enjoyable freshman year.
That spring, of course, we heard the first reports of the Nifong-Mangum hoax. I was constantly reminded of that one student's casual remark as this campus ravaged itself in a crisis of confidence. Suddenly we were all very naughty boys and girls (mostly boys), stained by arrogance born of wealth and wallowing in wine and loose women. A "Culture of Crassness" was pronounced. What could we expect, anyway? This was Duke.
Happily, as the hoax fizzled, so did the mass self-recriminations, and we all got a little spring back in our steps as the student body reasserted itself and its pride was restored. But if opinions of "us" at Duke have been rehabilitated, opinions of "them" often remains low.
"People are stupid," is an assertion that, through repetition, aspires to become a truism. Just a few weeks ago, in one of my computer science classes, I unintentionally dropped a few jaws by suggesting that the vast majority of students could figure out, with the entire Internet at their disposal, how to install and run a simple file-sharing program. Engineers don't think humanities majors can count, and humanities majors don't think engineers can read.
Beyond the intellectual, there is deep suspicion of fellow students' social trustworthiness. We hide behind anonymous "secrets" boxes. We box ourselves, or allow ourselves to be boxed into neat categories-Greeks, SLGs and independents, religious and ethnic groups-each a little clique unto itself, each assumed to be in constant conflict, each attacked as overly powerful or pitied as underrepresented. And what else could you expect? This is Duke.
I don't count myself among the world's brighter rays of sunshine, but I think too many of us are too quick to assume that the worst is inevitable. It goes beyond cynicism to pessimism, or even fatalism. And it doesn't really fit with reality.
Sure, I see the dumb and the dastardly at Duke; I've spent five of eight semesters calling it out. But more often, I see the bright and the beautiful that is here. At this university I've found art and music, wit and wisdom where I least expected them. I've met people who might very well spend their lives digging ditches, but I've also met people with the potential to affect the world in real, tangible, positive ways. I see no reason to give the former precedence over the latter.
It's like a great band of philosophers once said: "Be true to your school, just like you would to your girl or guy." I will never regret the decision I made to spend the past four years here, and I only hope my classmates feel the same way. I hope that guy from freshman orientation, whoever he was, has changed his mind about this place.
And most of all, I hope that when those of you with time left here look around, you won't let the limitless potential be dragged down by the weight of blind negativism. This school is what you make of it, which means it can really be great. What, after all, do you expect? This is Duke.
Oliver Sherouse is a Trinity senior. This is his last column.
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