<p>I can't believe I haven't asked an opinion about this yet haha. I won't be able to bring my car to Duke my first year (...let's just say it wouldn't survive the 15 hour drive...), so I was just wondering, how's life without a car at Duke? Is it integral to having some fun? Or is everyone pretty nice about letting you borrow their car? Plus, the convenience of going on your own time to buy clothes or get a haircut without a car...</p>
<p>Mainly, I'm gonna miss my late night WalMart trips to buy random needed stuff...</p>
<p>Man, I saw the topic title and for a minute I was really excited because I thought it was going to be about the Disney movie.</p>
<p>Quick answer to your question in the form of a run-on sentence since I'm too lazy to be grammatical: Definitely not integral to having fun (as almost all of the social life occurs on campus), life's pretty easy, it's ALWAYS better to have a friend with a car than to deal with having one yourself (parking sucks), you can't really generalize about whether people are nice about lending out cars and stuff seeing as it really depends on each individual person, not Duke's student body as a whole, there's a haircutting place on campus and do you REALLY shop for clothes so often that it's an integral part of your life? because you won't have time to when school starts anyway, I can almost guarantee that, and any stuff you REALLY need can be bought on campus. Long story short, it's fine and most people I know didn't have cars and more than survived.</p>
<p>Wow, that was just a terrible sentence. Oh well.</p>
<p>And she was thinking of being an English major, too! (I kid, I kid... sorta. Because she was.)</p>
<p>I didn't have a car first semester and it was fine, there were really only a few times when I actually would have wanted one, much less needed one. In 6 hours, however, I'm driving from Los Angeles to Durham, so I can have a car at Duke. Part of the issue is I want to volunteer at a place around 30-50 minutes away from Duke, and it wouldn't ever work out to have someone drop me off at the beginning of a shift, drive back, then drive back again to pick me up, then return to Duke (for a total of 2-3 hours of driving...). Unless you have a situation like that, its not a big deal.</p>
<p>Also, hopefully, I'm going to finish writing a little program within a month or two (among many) that I'll promote through the student government that will let you connect up craigslist style for carpooling, so if someone's already going on a Costco run that day, you can just jump in instead of arranging a separate trip with a friend with a car. Should make it even easier to get around if it takes off.</p>
<p>I didn't have a car my first two years, and I survived. Pretty much when one person needed to make a Target run, a few others did, and we could find someone with a car to drive us or let us borrow a car... same goes for going to the mall or to the movies. A lot of hair salons are a short walk from campus, so that shouldn't be a big deal. I know people who have made spare keys for their car to lend it out, and I also know people who would never dream of letting another person drive their car-- it obviously varies considerably... though typically, most people have no problem driving you for a quick errand. If they can't do it one day, they'll find time within the next day or two (at least that's the case w/ my friends).</p>