<p>Hi, how is college life at Duke? Also, is there a lot of racism? I am Iranian and I'm Christian, and I'm kinda scared to go to a school with racism against people. </p>
<p>are there enough things to do nearby? I heard Durham, NC is dangerous so I don't know if I want to even LEAVE the campus. what about shopping and food and things though? are the people generally friendly, and is the high price and the education worth it?</p>
<p>I am going into senior year.</p>
<p>Thanks!
-Melanie</p>
<p>Personally, I don't think there's much racism at all, especially with someone of your race. From my experiences, students are so open-minded about different cultures, and just willing to learn from them. My group of friends consists of Haitians, Middle Easterners, Indians (Hindi), African-Americans, Koreans...and so on. If anyone has a cultural event going on (Project Medishare, Awaaz...) we're all invited and eager to go. I've never met a student who would judge anyone by race...it's not even a factor.</p>
<p>There are a ton of things to do around campus, I think, but many of them require a car. Generally there's always someone around with a car willing to venture out to eat or the mall. There's Southpoint which is an AMAZING mall/promenadeish area with tons of places to eat and whatnot...plus it has every shop ever. It obviously requires a car, but the drive isn't too bad at all. There's also Ninth Street which is a short walk from east campus. There are some nice places to eat and a few artsy/hippie kind of shops, but it's definitely fun. Durham itself also has some really neat places, and some awesome restaurants. I'm really happy with what's around campus. It's just nice because Duke is a really contained campus, but a short drive/walk off there's some neat things to experience. So if you want to venture out, you can, but if not you don't have to.</p>
<p>In regards to Durham being dangerous...I'm not gonna lie...its probably a more dangerous place than Uptown Charlotte, where I'm from. BUT most cities are dangerous, and if you use common sense you'll be completely fine (ie don't go out alone/in a small group at night, don't venture into neighborhoods you aren't familiar with, yada yada). People hear so many things about Durham, but there are cities that are just as bad, and college towns which are just as dangerous, so it doesn't really phase me anymore. I always feel safe on and off campus, and generally you will if you just use common sense.</p>
<p>I love my school, so obviously I think it's worth it. People are generally really friendly, and it's just a fun place to be...I'm a little obsessed and want to go back now. lol. You should definitely visit campus, if you haven't already, because that's really the best way to know what it's like!</p>
<p>in my opinion Duke is like any other place. there will be some people who will not accept who you are (in regards to race, religion, sexual orientation, etc...). but the overwhelming majority of Duke students are too smart to be that stupid. duke students are very open. as noted above, there are always different cultural and religeous events and such. Awaaz, for example, was an event that provided a free indian dinner and show. it was a great way to get to learn a bit about indian culture and have a great meal.</p>
<p>in regards to the surrounding area - i don't see any reason to worry. the crime is a problem in parts of durham. but immediately around campus is pretty safe. there is a lot of police presence and if you're smart, you should not have a problem.</p>
<p>there's plenty to do around duke. the entire triangle area is full of stuff to do - most notably franklin street (UNC - boo!) and southpoint mall. both places are fun. duke has almost anything you could want though so excursions are not a regular experience (at least not for me).</p>
<p>If you aren't sure about if duke is worth it the only advice i have would be to come down and visit. it's an amazing place. it has an incredibly beautiful campus, top-notch academics, a great social scene (assuming you are content with staying on and around campus), and wonderful people. if you're looking for something other than what i listed, maybe duke is not for you. i tend to think duke is the best place on earth (moving disney world down to #2..). i don't know one student here who is unhappy.</p>
<p>I agree with the above posters, Duke fosters a very open and collaborative atmosphere. The student body in general is friendly, intelligent, and culturally diverse. I myself am asian and haven't seen any racism at all during my freshman year. In fact, I have friends from all different ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. Duke's location in Durham is just like any other city campus - (Penn, Yale, etc) - its not "dangerous" in the respect that one should avoid the city altogether. Just exercise judgment when going out at night, as you would in any other city (i.e. go with friends, etc.) Everything one might need can be found on campus (food, grocery stores, etc.) but large department/grocery stores such as Walmart, Krogers, etc. are accessible by car. In addition to all the stuff that goes on on campus (arts, music, shows, etc.), Northgate Mall is within 10-15 minutes walking distance, Streets at Southpoint and other diversions in the suburban areas and Raleigh/Chapel Hill are accessible by car, 9th Street is just off of East Campus (with Whole Foods grocer, restaurants, shops), forests are off of West Campus for jogging, bike riding, etc., and the Robertson Bus goes btwn. Duke and Chapel Hill's Frankin Street which has a lot of trendy shops and restaurants, as well as access to UNC@CH.</p>
<p>Is Duke worth it? This is a uniquely individual response, but for me, it def has been and is</p>
<p>Check collegeboard.com to see how diverse it is...last year it was selected by the NAACP as the best "top" school (out of 25 schools they abitrarily selected) for an African American student</p>
<p>Of course, you aren't African American, but that should show you how much "racism" there is</p>
<p>Just steer clear of the rich WASP/Southern elitist kids, who are probably the most likely to be close-minded (they are at every school, so this is advice for everyone even if you don't go to Duke)</p>
<p>i like how that last WASP comment could in itself be construed as an act of racism... how ironic</p>
<p>its the much less bad kind of racism, and its probably true for a small percentage of students anywhere</p>
<p>It's very open racially, I wouldn't worry. The others have addressed the issue pretty well. There are some racially-oriented cliques (blacks who only hang out with blacks, asians who only hang out with asians, whites who only hang out with whites, indians who only hang out with indians), but I've found them to be the overwhelming minority, and its not something that will interfere with your social experience at all.</p>
<p>Durham can be dangerous, but only if you're foolish about it. You are taking a risk if you walk through a high-crime neighborhood at 3am at night wearing expensive jewelry, obviously, but there aren't any parts of Durham that I would be unwilling to go through during the day. After dark is a different issue, but that's the case in most any urban area. I would not consider it to be a serious issue, and you're not going to find better many other places, because Yale is in New Haven (similar to Durham in crime), John Hopkins is in Baltimore (similar to Durham, if not worse), Columbia is in New York (with parts of it similar to Durham in crime), etc.</p>
<p>I hope it is okay if I post here. </p>
<p>My d is an oos student who did not apply to Duke, but will attend UNC. I check out the UNC and Duke boards occasionally in an effort to get a feel for how things are in North Carolina. So far, her visits to NC have been great and she has several friends who will attend Duke who say the same. Regarding racial boundaries and racism, their overall impression seems to be that young people in general are too smart to get caught up in that nonsense...that is something they regard as a problem of their parents' generation. And while it is true there will always be narrow minded people, those people are definitely in the minority on most college campuses.</p>
<p>Regarding the 'southern wasp' comment...I think it is interesting to point out that the lacrosse boys who stood the street yelling racial slurs were not from the South, but from the Northeast. So I have to agree with paniwani, it's probably best to not form generalizations about any group of human beings.</p>
<p>i think the "southern wasp" should be taken with a grain of salt but it is a fact, from my experiences at duke, that most of the racial/ethnic tension i have encountered has been from a southern conservative (not necessarily a wasp). i'm not trying to make any blanket statement - this is just my experience. that said, there has been VERY little of this - definetaly not enough to influence anyone's decision about attending duke.</p>
<p>Just going to point out, but "the lacrosse boys who stood in the street yelling racial slurs" didn't actually do that, sorry, or atleast if they did it is far from a confirmed fact. At worst, a comment was made regarding a cotton shirt but its not clear if this has been corrobarated by anyone besides the second stripper.</p>
<p>Sorry, felt the need to correct because of the heated threads on the DukeChronicle.com site.</p>
<p>yes durham is dangerous, but i have a friend who's a junior there and who's very involved in campus groups...she has barely ever left campus.
there is a lot of good food and stuff to do around duke. there is a BIG asian presence. you shouldn't have a problem at all.</p>
<p>I haven't followed the lax story too closely....felt it was becoming one of those inflamed FoxNews stories where facts were getting terribly distorted. And the CC thread with hundreds of thousands of posts is just ridiculous. BUT, I do believe I read in the Raleigh/Durham online papers that at least two neighbors corroborated that racial slurs were being shouted outside that evening.</p>
<p>My point is that it is safe assume you will find narrow, racist people in all parts of our country, not just the South. And thankfully for our children, the most progressive thinkers can be found on college campuses.</p>
<p>I will say that the experiences at Duke may be very different for a URM student and an ORM student. Not that kids are racist per se - only that I do think it can be hard to bond across the U/O line unless you're really trying to.</p>
<p>Perhaps the college admissions process creates divisions amongst us when we're entering, and these divisions - to a certain extent - persist over time.</p>
<p>(One adult I know once commented that people at Duke self-segregate by race. Not dominantly true, but at least somewhat true. One friend brought up a theory of his own: maybe we self-segregate by SAT score, etc., and it's the admissions dept's fault that it correlates with race.)</p>
<p>what's being said on this thread is good. i'm glad the OP is asking questions of actual students and parents as opposed to consulting the stupid "news" articles</p>
<p>I still feel like Duke is too big of a school with too many people to make any generalizations. Some say that there's self-segregation, and walking into the Marketplace it definitely did sometimes feel like that scene out of Mean Girls (you know, the one with all the different cafeteria tables?) because you could clearly see that there was a table with only Asians, a table with only Blacks, etc. HOWEVER, that has not been representative of my Duke experience AT ALL. I'm blocking with 3 other girls this fall, and together we are 1 Colombian, 2 Jews, and an Asian. In my tent in K-Ville, I think that out of the 12 members, only maybe...3 or 4 were of the same race and religion. I mean, I have the most diverse group of friends ever, and I love it. I'm sure that there are people at Duke who are more narrow-minded than the people I choose to befriend are, but that's precisely the reason that I don't hang out in the same circles as them. If you're an open-minded person and you wish to find other open-minded people, you will have more than your share to befriend at Duke. To be perfectly honest, the Duke I miss with all of my heart this summer, the Duke I can't wait to go back to in a couple of weeks, and the Duke that contains all of the amazing friends I've made over the past year is NOTHING like the negative image of Duke that I see portrayed in the media. Nothing at all. So yeah, I second jimbob -- thanks for trying to get the real information instead of trusting biased news sources like so many others have. That's such a waste of time.</p>
<p>well... everyone loves to hate duke because we are good at everything :) except football</p>
<p>Haha - that's why we've decided not to have a good football team...</p>
<p>amen.</p>
<p>Though I'd have to say that I was hoping that the scene in Mean Girls you were referring to was the one where all of the students were acting like animals. Or was that in the hallway of the high school?</p>
<p>A kind of dif question not regarding racism, but people have been talking about the shops and stuff in durham...what about internships and jobs? are there any? how far from campus?</p>
<p>thanks :)</p>