Me, myself and I

“So, what’d you get?”

We’ve all thought it before and most of us have probably asked it to one another. This dreaded question, which always leaves one individual with a smirk on his or her face and an inflated ego and the other with academic insecurities and one almost severed friendship, seems to be pervasive at Duke. In high school, I looked forward to college as a place where this foolish and excessive competitiveness in academia would come to an end. Yet, much to my dismay, I have found that in some sense, college has made it even worse.

The worst part about a midterm, or any test in general, is getting it back. Whether it’s the classic “If I had just five more minutes!” or “We never even learned this in class!” there always seems to be a reason to be at least just the tiny bit unsatisfied with the results. In many of my past classes, my final grade was determined relative to how well my peers performed in the class, which is the double-edged sword of a system. On one end, this strategy makes sense in order to avoid a drastically skewed spread of letter grades (e.g. Duke math). Yet, on the other end, it often leaves me with malicious hopes at the end of exams that my peers also got the same questions wrong and overall did worse, even just by the slightest bit, than I did.

At such a prestigious institution like Duke, it is hard to ever really feel accomplished. Within our classrooms, we are conditioned to define our success as relative to others’ and, unsurprisingly, this competitive attitude pervades our life beyond our lecture halls. It leaves us always looking around to see what others are doing and often pressures us to one-up them. We get so caught in this race against each other that we miss many opportunities to pursue our goals and mold our four years here into the college career best suited for ourselves.

In the beginning of the semester, I found myself often cringing when others asked me what I had done over the summer. I didn’t have some impressive story about beginning a start-up company or going through a life-exchanging experience volunteering for an NGO across international borders. Rather, I worked at a dessert café in my hometown earning minimum wage, spent countless hours in Barnes and Noble catching up on reading and, to be honest, watched a somewhat shameful amount of Netflix (but didn’t we all?). When asked this question, I was always quick to reply with a, “Oh, not much. What about you?” in order to avoid my comparatively embarrassing answer. Yet, in retrospect, I regret being silenced by others’ supposedly superior summer experiences. Sure, my summer was spent in the comforts of a familiar environment but I was happy with what I made of it and at the end of the day, I realized that my happiness and satisfaction are what matter. Plus, who knew “Scrubs” was such a great show?

Recently, I’ve noticed I’ve started to become more self-centered. Not the narcissistic and pretentious type but the type who focuses more on myself in terms of how I define success. I’ve come to terms with the fact that it is simply impossible to pursue my own interests and, on top of that, attempt to excel in whatever everyone else seems to be doing. In fact, I’ve found that it is a waste of time trying to do the latter.

Perhaps a prime example of all of this is with the DukeEngage applications. With the applications due in just a few weeks, many of my friends seem to be scrambling to attend all the information sessions and trying to strategically pick one to apply for. Like many of you, I have felt extremely pressured to apply because it seems like the “correct” thing to do, but while I absolutely respect the DukeEngage program and everything the experience entails, I’m not sure that is how I want to spend my summer. I won’t share what any of my other tentative plans are either, though. As frightening as it is, not knowing or worrying about what others are doing is a great way to focus on yourself. Be self-centered, think more about yourself, and as cliché as it sounds, you do you. You’d be pleasantly surprised at how satisfying that’ll feel.

Brandon Choi is a Trinity sophomore. His column runs every other Thursday.