I dreaded the drive down, didn’t know anyone in the program and was certain I had made a terrible decision. As I gazed out my window with tear-filled eyes on my first night in DC, I had no clue what the next four months had in store.
Sanford advertises the Duke in DC program as a rigorous opportunity to pursue professional development in the center of the political universe. While that is undoubtedly true, very little of this article is dedicated to my professional experiences in the program and I think that is a testament to its beauty. More than the hours spent in the office, my time outside of work is what defined my experience.
For as long as I can remember, I was always quick to judge whether someone could be my friend. Sometimes, I’d sense it before even talking to them. To me, this was a subconscious superpower. When I put it to use on my first day in DC, I definitively concluded none of my classmates could ever be my meaningful friends.
It seemed that all I had in common with the rest of my cohort was our major. If I hadn’t been forced to live with them, I would never have made an effort to be friends. But there was only one house in DC. No campus. No escape. I resigned to give them a chance when my supposedly infallible sense said otherwise.
From debating the state of American democracy in class to telling stories about our lives at Duke as we talked late into the night (or early in the morning), I found myself opening up to people who had been strangers a month before. My premature judgments gave way to a comfort that I hadn’t felt in my three semesters on campus. Even with a roommate at Duke, I often felt isolated and lost, but in a single on the top floor of our house, I always felt at home.
Our cohort was a perfect equilibrium of personalities. There was wit, humor, kindness, puns and obnoxious noise (usually me). We were a randomly arranged family that somehow fit seamlessly. As I struggled with anxiety and depression throughout the Fall, I never thought I’d be screaming Taylor Swift at the top of my lungs at a karaoke bar, or dancing on tables at a creperie late at night or attempting (and sometimes utterly failing) to cook Indian food a few months later. I never imagined I’d go ice skating and spectacularly fall, or binge watch Too Hot to Handle or spend hours talking outside the Library of Congress instead of writing policy memos for class. Never in a MILLION years did I think I’d find myself obsessed with K-pop, K-Dramas and boba. Yet all of that happened.
Duke in DC taught me the value of giving people a chance. It proved to me that snap judgements aren’t always or even often the right ones. It allowed me to find a piece of myself that I had lost in the Fall and to find strength in the best people that Duke has to offer (“the top of the crop”, as one of us mistakenly said). The people I met made me a better human every day, and I am so deeply grateful for the time we spent together in our home.
As I write this article in an apartment just four blocks from our home last semester, I know it isn’t the same. The city hasn’t changed, my job isn’t markedly better or worse, and my trusty Marlon (a bonsai tree) is still with me. It’s the people. It’s the people who would bring a smile to my face when I came home after a long day and give me unsolicited compliments (some committed to making fun of me unceasingly). It’s the people I’d unashamedly watch TV shows with at all hours. They aren’t here now.
When asked why I wanted to do the program in my interview, I remember raving about the internship and the opportunity to live in DC. What I should’ve said is I want to do the program to meet people whose names I do not yet know. That’s why I’d go back and do the program again in a heartbeat.
If you’re uncertain about whether to take a chance on the unkown, I’m telling you to take that leap. I was absolutely convinced it was not for me but it was in every way. I encourage you to do it for the people who you haven’t yet met, the opportunities you have not yet been presented and the lessons you haven’t yet learned.
As this semester begins, I am constantly reminded of the beauty in the unknown. Every time I walk past someone from Duke in DC, my day is made brighter. Instead of closing myself off in classes or speedwalking to the door after a discussions section, I’m going to challenge myself to stay a little longer and counter my snap judgements. Instead of scrolling past opportunities that seem to stray from my interests, I’ll click on them and see where they take me.
As my infinitely wise psychiatrist told me, instead of thinking of all the ways something could go wrong, think about how it could go incredibly right.
Vineet Chovatia is a Trinity junior. His column runs on alternate Thursdays.
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