<p>If you skip breakfast, then can you use $6 credit at the Great Hall for lunch instead of breakfast?</p>
<p>@BallerDuke14</p>
<p>But you’ll most likely spend more than $6 at the great-hall. Food at Duke is not overly expensive, but is not cheap either. Expect to spend ~$7-9 for an average meal.</p>
<p>I think the $6 credit from missed breakfasts can only be used for (1) breakfast at the Great Hall or (2) lunch at the Marketplace. That’s what I remember from the beginning of the year, but they might have changed it. Marketplace lunch is pretty good, though.</p>
<p>Dinner at the marketplace isn’t really bad, it’s just not anything to get excited for.</p>
<p>knat: you are right (at least according to the dining website) and the amount is apparently now $4. I guess they were serious about that dining deficit thing…</p>
<p>If that’s the case, then would you guys recommend scheduling your classes so that you have enough time between classes for going back to East for lunch? Because I would imagine that you would waste a lot of money by skipping one of your swipes for the day by eating lunch on West…</p>
<p>Not so fast there, we didn’t say that you get a lunch meal swipe on the freshmen dining plan. You get a breakfast and a dinner swipe on east. Lunch is a la carte everywhere. If you happen to skip breakfast on east then you have a $4 credit towards breakfast on west or lunch on east on the same day.</p>
<p>Food: Here’s the thing: institutional food cooked in large quantities for large numbers of clients over a wide time frame will never be as good as home cooking or really good restaurant meals. I have the–admittedly biased–impression that, because the rest of Duke life is pretty good, frequently the only thing left to complain about is the food. I’ve eaten at the marketplace a few times, and not just during official parent events. Here is one observation: at breakfast, our son first got a waffle then got the rest of his meal and then commented that the waffle was cold. Duh. This from an engineering student who should know the basics of the thermodynamics of waffles. Students need to complain. I complained about food when I was in college (not that what we had compared in any way to what is available now). I think that just goes with the experience.</p>
<p>I’ve never had breakfast at the Great Hall and I didn’t have lunch in Marketplace for the entire first semester. Don’t worry too much about scheduling classes for lunch. If you’re really worried about eating, just get up a bit earlier to grab a quick breakfast, bring some type of snack (like a granola bar or piece of fruit) with you to class, and then just have pop back to East for dinner. </p>
<p>It depends on your schedule how things happen. I had a perfect gap first semester between two classes to grab breakfast, but this semester I end class early enough to grab lunch on East. Some days I grab breakfast, have class for the entire day, and get out in time for dinner but skip lunch entirely. I wouldn’t bother planning your schedule around eating meals because it tends to work itself out on its own.</p>
<p>To all incoming freshmen: steal food from Marketplace. It’s a matter of survival. I know some of you are thinking right now that sounds morally dubious. You’ll see. A meal at marketplace is valued at $14. While you could theoretically eat $14 worth of Marketplace food and get your money’s worth, the resulting hospital bills would not be worth it. You also get a total of 12 meals on your board plan, which, you may notice, is approximately 9 fewer meals than most normal people eat. Duke Dining knows this. They don’t care. They are evil.
This evil must be avenged in the name of social justice. You’ll start small. Apples. Bananas. A brownie. Then you’ll get bold. Walk out with a glass of chocolate milk one day. You’ll play it off like, “oh, I forgot I still had this glass, I’ll bring it back the next change I get.” But we both know that’s not true. You’re going to keep that glass. Before you know it, you’re stealing plates. Silverware. Cartons of soy milk are always a popular commodity. You’ll begin stealing hot sauce, trying to complete your collection (red Tabasco, green Tobasco, Sriracha, Cholula, Texas Pete). You invest in some quality tupperware and begin to steal chicken. That empty cereal box you have in your room - it can be refilled. The pies over in the corner by the toaster are just asking to be taken back to your dorm room. Those tubs of ice cream - with enough people running interference and a quality duffel bag, you can throw an ice cream party for your entire dorm.
And now I hear that they are reducing the meal equivalency to $4. As you will discover, $4 will get you absolutely nothing at lunch. It will get you 2/3rds of a mediocre sandwich, or (admittedly tasty) paad thai that is not worth the 35 minute wait. So go forth, latter-day Robin Hoods, members of the class of '14. Make us proud.</p>
<p>That was a funny post^
The other question I had was that while I was checking out the courses for fall 2010 I was kind of mapping out the kind of schedule I wanted. Is it relatively possible for me to get from the White Lecture Hall 107 on East (class ends at 11:10) to the Bio Sci building (class begins at 11:40) without being late (even with professors running over time and other things that may cause a class to run late/start early)?</p>
<p>It’s definitely possible, considering white lecture hall is a stone’s throw from the east bus stop. Even quicker if you can catch a C3. Though if your class frequently runs over by 5-10 minutes it’ll be close.</p>
<p>I’m sure this has been answered before, but what are the best dorms? For social activity and a nice surrounding environment and space?</p>
<p>You don’t get to choose your dorm on east. The nicest by far is Belltower (and really close to Whole Foods). Most of the dorms on the main east quad are pretty similar. </p>
<p>Randolph and Belltower (two of the three AC dorms) don’t have ‘real’ common rooms; very quite and peaceful with a lot of closed doors. Less of a community feeling.</p>
<p>@John117</p>
<p>All of the dorms are incredibly different. If you choose to do a FOCUS program are do a themes dorms (there are only the Performing Arts and Substance Free), I think those tend to be a bit closer just because of a common interest. Epworth, being the smallest dorm, tends to be the closest knit between everyone (it only holds about 30 people). </p>
<p>@BallerDuke14</p>
<p>You won’t be able to catch the C-3 in time for it to take you up to Science Drive with getting at at 10 past the hour, but you can easily just catch the C-1 and walk. You’ll probably have to rush a little bit and take the paths behind the chapel (which you can map out during orientation week), but you can do it on time. (I have a class at West Duke Building and then I need to run to Teer. I’m normally about a minute late, but if your second class is a larger lecture, it won’t matter too much.)</p>
<p>About what cameroncrazy says:</p>
<p>Lol. Sorry I can’t be more articulate about this. Most people will take small amounts of food from the Marketplace, which is discouraged but they normally won’t stop you. I’ll usually grab an apple on the way out for a later snack, but some people will take some dry cereal or something else. (I’ve never actually seen anyone take a full carton of milk or any of the sauces, but I’m sure it happens.) Just note: if you do take any silverware or plates/cups/etc., at least bring it back at the end of the year.</p>
<p>Thanks for doing this guys, this is really helpful and I really appreciate it. Another question I had was about setting up my schedule for first semester. I’m thinking of going pre-med with pubpol and poli sci majors but I want my first semester to be my easiest schedule that I’ll have at Duke just to get acclimated to college, build study habits, etc. So would this be a relatively hard schedule or is it still pretty easy?:
chem 31L, poli sci 93D, writing 20, and advanced spanish 76. The reason why I was worried was because I heard intro classes are weed-out classes and even though I anticipate chem31L being hard, I don’t know how hard polisci93 and spanish 76 will be. any ideas?</p>
<p>@ BallerDuke14</p>
<p>I can’t really say about PoliSci, so I’ll have to let someone else answer that. About Spanish, however, I will say that Duke’s Spanish program is not as strong as their other languages. All languages at Duke are rather intensive (you’ll meet four days a week, sometimes five). My roommate took Spanish in freshman year, and while she did rather well in it, she did say it took more work than she would have liked. </p>
<p>When you are picking your writing 20, depending on your registration window, your work load will vary. My Writing 20 was pretty easy in general. We had two major essay and a series of small reflection papers. Some others, however, require reading mutliple novels and weekly papers. Just as a warning. If you maybe want a lighter load, consider joining a FOCUS group to replace Spanish or PoliSci. By the sounds of it, you might be interested in the Global Health FOCUS, and it’d provide a nice, fun class for your first semester (and it helps with meeting people). Or, you can put off your Writing 20 until second semester and ask around for what was an easy Writing 20.</p>
<p>Chie, could you tell me how this schedule looks?
Chem 31L, Psy 11, Writing 20/First year seminar, Spanish 1</p>
<p>The main thing I’m concerned about is that the Spanish 1 class meets every day during the week. Should I put it off for next semester so I can get better adjusted to college and take something like an easy history class instead?</p>
<p>@ hilary11</p>
<p>Spanish 1 isn’t horrible from what I’ve heard, and while classes that meet everyday are a pain (just because they tend to assign homework everyday as a result), they aren’t killer. My advice from hearing comments from peers is to just stay on top of the homework everyday (falling behind sucks when a midterm is looming) and definitely study for the midterms. </p>
<p>Psy11 is a big class but I’ve heard its actually quite easy (if you taken it with Whitefield). Whitefield’s section of PSY 11 is actually full already, and the only other teacher offering it next semester is Grime, who I’ve never heard of. Overall though, the consensus is that it’s not a hard class. </p>
<p>Chem 31 was the bane of my existence, but I also have always disliked Chemistry. This’ll probably be your hardest class and the class that takes the most effort. </p>
<p>If you’re worried about the load Spanish or Chem might give you, I’d suggest taking your seminar with these classes instead of Writing 20. While I think you can do this load with any Writing 20, by putting it off until second semester, you can gauge difficulty level of different teachers just by asking around. But if you have a good registration window for first semester, you might want to just take the chance of any Writing 20. (I’m looking at next semester’s writing 20 topics right now, and some of them look very interesting.)</p>
<p>How has everyone signed up for classes already? I was under the impression we needed to be on campus to start signing up? And how do sign ups for classes work? Are classes often full for you guys?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Freshmen will register in June/July. Just sit tight. :)</p>