I’ve been looking around and I keep finding conflicting opinions. I have seen that Duke is like a Northern school in the South. By this, people seem to mean that Duke students are less friendly than expected. When I toured, I went over the summer, so I didn’t get to see a fully active campus. I know that the party scene is pretty big. I want to know if generally, people are nice and friendly. In passing, do students smile and wave, or keep to themselves? Are dorm room doors always open so people can make friends? Outside of the party scene, on a day to day level, are people friendly? I’m scared of going there and finding people to just work hard alone and then get wasted all together on the weekends. Is there a chill intermediate?
Like any large schools you will see a mix of personalities. There is the active frat scene as well as students who prefer not to party.
Sports is huge on campus. Most of the social activities revolve around the sports teams.
I have visited the campus a few times, and found it generally friendly. It’s not a large community compared to larger state universities. The undergrad population is also about 30% Asian (largely chinese), from a cultural background that does not include the American habit of waving and being friendly to strangers. That’s a uniquely American cultural phenomenon that is weird to others outside the US. Duke is pretty global. When you chat someone up at Duke, however, people are uber-friendly.
Hi, I have actually had the opposite experience. Students at Duke were not friendly when I visited. They were very competitive and intense. The type of students that would act like they don’t have to study for the exam, but secretly cram in the library for hours. I did not like this environment whatsoever and some of my friends who actually attended Duke validated these feelings.
Tbh, all this talk about certain schools having a certain “vibe” is mostly just marketing and school spirit. Duke, just like any other of its peer schools, is going to be a pressure cooker with so many students going into Wall Street, law schools, and medicine. You can’t expect university, especially if you go to a quote a quote “elite” university, to be all la la land all time time, holding hands together in Cameron while hanging out on Abele quad smiling for the cameras. If you get accepted into Duke, great, but don’t expect Duke, like any other university of its caliber, to have a uniform vibe or atmosphere.
Also, you can take this with a grain of salt since I am just one of 6,300 undergrads, but generally throughout the day I’ll come across a few people I know (Professors and students) just walking on the quad or on the bus and we’ll make pleasant conversation. The people I talk with and hang out with generally tend to be a friendly, laid back bunch, but I’m a humanities major, so I’m probably biased.
People don’t wave and say hi to strangers.
I think the “wave and say hi to strangers” is a Southern thing. So the Duke students from the South will do it, but those who aren’t probably won’t unless they get acclimated to southern ways. It’s one of the things I miss about being in the South. “Hey!”
OP, I can tell you that the Duke Alumni I know (only about 4 people) are all very friendly and fun.
As someone who lives in NC, this is very true. A lot of older ladies, in particular, like to chat if you find yourself together in a line or on public transit. Otherwise people are just friendly but not annoying.
No. We’re the worst. I hate everyone.