Like any college freshman, I had a hard time adapting to college. Although I knew college was going to be much different than high school, I was taken by surprise by the difficulty of the transition. I was more emotional the first semester of college than I had been in my last two years of high school. I didn’t realize until winter break of freshman year that I took my home for granted. Besides the comfort and familiarity that my home provided, my home gave me a strong sense of my identity, which I realized had become completely dependent on my familiarity with my surroundings.. I came to this realization when I saw my sense of self dissolving at Duke.
I found myself surprisingly embroiled in a Disney Channel TV show about high schoolers when I came to Duke. I found myself feeling more pressure from my social life than I ever had before. The ridiculous discomfort that came with sitting alone at marketplace was unexpected, especially because I usually cherish being alone.
The pressure to meet new people constantly because being friendless at any moment in time was uncomfortable took a toll on my well-being. The strong need to meet new people was an annoying emotion and a tedious task that I knew deep down I didn’t have to do and was not how I wanted to make friends. I found myself going up to people and talking to them, even though I knew I would prefer to be in my room taking a nap. The comfort I found being alone in my room for several hours at home suddenly disappeared, and I felt the need to be around people constantly. I found people who I loved seeing constantly, and I had the desire to be around them a lot. However, those isolated hours I spent day after day in my home were how I developed my self-awareness. My foundation of self-awareness dissolved when I came to Duke, as I thought about others’ concerns, others’ opinions of me, and what others wanted from me constantly, neglecting my own desires. The neglect of myself took a toll on me.
Coming to Duke, I thought I was stepping into a world of opportunities, but I quickly found myself believing that I was not suited for Duke and that I was not on par with the rest of my peers. This was due to several factors including the stereotype threat. By falling trap to the stereotype threat, I felt I was holding back because I was limiting my potential due to my fear of taking risks or asking questions that would portray me as unintelligent to people.
As a result, I often did not ask questions when I was confused in classes or even in extracurricular settings out of the fear of being seen as an unintelligent black student “who was only at Duke because of affirmative action.” Another reason I felt that I was inferior to my peers was because of my educational background. I attended average public schools my whole life, and I did not see this as a deficit in my preparation for college until I came to Duke and was surrounded by many students who had attended private schools and top ranked boarding schools, charter schools, and public schools. I would hear students casually mention they went to the number one school in their state, and I would immediately understand where they learned their extensive jargon usage that I could not comprehend. Because of this, I would not often participate in classes because I believed that I could not come up with responses that were as articulate and intelligent as those of my peers.
When I arrived at Duke’s campus as a first year student, I felt that I had adequate preparation. I had looked through the blue book, I was aware of the academic departments that sparked my interests, and I was aware of the different centers and clubs in which I knew I would want to attend and participate. Of course, I felt there was a lot I still needed to learn when arriving to Duke, but I believed that I could handle college pretty well. This of course changed when I allowed others to influence my confidence in the academic and social worlds so heavily.
Coming to terms with succumbing to peer pressure and the stereotype threat at the age of eighteen was difficult to admit to. Although eighteen is still a very young age, I thought by that age I should be way above peer pressure – that was a problem that middle schoolers went through, not college students. In addition, I thought I was beyond the stereotype threat, since I told myself that I had brushed off comments made by high school peers about affirmative action’s role in my life.
The bottom line is that although Duke stands for inclusivity and is meant to give students from all backgrounds a chance to climb up the ladder of success, some students will struggle more in their first year than others will. This can be due to being a racial minority – especially an underrepresented minority – a non wealthy student, a student with a less than stellar educational background, a student who is introverted, a student who is an LGBTQ community member, among other things.
As much as we would all love to believe that we can accomplish as much as the next person, we cannot hold this belief without recognizing that some of us will struggle more and have to work harder than others because of who we are and where we come from. It’s not to say that we won’t achieve as much as everyone else, but we will have to put in some extra work because although we have equality in the sense that we all attend Duke University, we do not come from equitable backgrounds and have equitable experiences.
Maram Elnagheed is a Trinity sophomore. Her column, "here we go again," usually runs on alternate Mondays.
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Maram Elnagheeb is a Trinity sophomore. Her column, "here we go again," runs on alternate Tuesdays.