Imagine this: On your extensive summer travels in Europe (right after you helped the hungry in Uganda and right before you studied abroad in Madrid, you worldly, do-gooder, stereotypical Duke student, you), you find yourself in a little city called Paris. You spot a University of Paris student nonchalantly nibbling on a piece of brie on the Métro and use your French-English pocket dictionary to ask him about places to go in the city.
“Oh, Paris?” the student scoffs. “I don’t go into the city unless I have to. The Louvre is so small these days, the streets smell bad, and—” he reaches up with one hand to adjust the angle of his beret “—I can’t stand the rags these Parisians call clothes nowadays.”
Shocked? Appalled? Of course you are. After all, who would go to the Sorbonne without taking advantage of the local sights, without experiencing everything the City of Light has to offer? Who would spend years wasting away inside the confines of his university, ignorant of the non-collegiate goings-on taking place mere miles away?
Oh, wait.
Pause to let this moment of blatant hypocrisy sink in. Because you, dear worldly, do-gooder Duke student—you’re actually the same person as another, less flattering Duke student stereotype. You’re also the undergrad who never sets foot off campus, who cringes at the mention of downtown Durham (“Don’t people, like, get shot on street corners?”), who supposes that a biannual visit to Bali Hai constitutes a robust town-and-gown relationship.
Worldly, do-gooder Duke student, meet irrationally wary, insular Duke student. I have a feeling you guys will get along just fine.
How do I know this? Because once upon a time, I embodied both stereotypes. Worldly, do-gooder me had plans of studying in Europe, volunteering in China, flying across the globe for the sake of both my personal growth and the future of civilization. I was willing to spend thousands of dollars on airfare and go weeks without showering, but irrationally wary, insular me had no plans of meandering through the streets of the Dirty D.
This mindset remained intact for two years. Then, two months ago, I found myself in a little city called Durham sharing an apartment with my friend and her family visiting from Eastern Europe. They wandered around Brightleaf Square, noted Durham’s abundance of medical centers. They were charmed by the lushness of the foliage—pink flowers scattered throughout green leaves—and the quaintness of the houses lining the city streets. One day they casually mentioned how much they liked the town.
“Oh, Durham?” I scoffed. “I guess it’s OK, but I never really explore during the school year. Too busy with, you know, schoolwork. Plus campus has everything I need: coffee, food, a bed to sleep in …” I trailed off.
Lucky for me and my insular self, a friend who was also in town for a summer internship had abandoned the typical Duke student’s blasé attitude toward Durham. Before the summer, she hadn’t seen much of the city either. In the Duke bubble, “Durham seemed very much an impenetrable, murky place,” she confided to me.
By the time I got to town, though, she’d broken the Duke-Durham barrier. She introduced me to the events calendar on the Independent Weekly website (www.indyweek.com), dragged me to Movies on the Lawn (held at the American Tobacco Campus by the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival) and told me about a community art project she wanted to participate in.
Somewhere between buying tomatoes at the Durham Farmers’ Market (Saturdays from 8 a.m. to noon at Durham Central Park) and digging through old postcards at the Scrap Exchange (on Foster Street), I remembered a piece of trivia I’d hardly believed when I first heard it last fall: Durham was named one of the 10 “Best Places to Live” in 2009 by U.S. News and World Report.
It’s more believable now.
I don’t want to be one more voice cheerfully trying to convince the Duke masses that “Hey, Durham isn’t as bad as we thought!” Really, it’d be fine if we all stayed in our ivory towers looking suspiciously out at the shadowy regions beyond our borders. Durham would continue existing in its quirky, tech-and-med small city glory. Duke would continue churning out highly qualified medical students and other worldly, do-gooder types.
It’d be fine, but—as one of the University’s many renowned economics professors would say—it’d be inefficient. Especially now, with the launch of the free, low-energy Bull City Connector (which runs from 7 a.m. to midnight Mondays through Saturdays), your excuses for not poking around in Durham are dwindling fast.
If you’re a freshman new to this whole college business, I hope your impressionability wins this column some influence as you begin your days at Duke. If you’re older and still unfamiliar with your surroundings—well, get out there! You’re setting a bad example for the youngsters.
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