<p>I know that Duke's campus is split into two areas, East and West. One for the freshmen and the other for everyone else. I have a few questions. What is the distance between the two campuses? Do people regularly have to go from one campus to the other to attend classes? If so, isn't that a little inconvenient? </p>
<p>thanks</p>
<p>rjacob - you will receive a variety of opinions on transport between East/West. That being said here is how I see it:</p>
<p>East is the original campus of Trinity College and is where all the freshmen dorms are located. Classes also take place on East campus. For instance the music department is located on east and other departments also hold classes on East campus.</p>
<p>When you are a freshman you will have to take a bus to west campus if your classes are on West. Count on the majority of your classes being on west campus. From the front of Campus Drive on east to front of Chapel Drive on West it is about 1.3 miles. You can check this out for yourself on google maps. It takes about 30 minutes to walk.</p>
<p>It takes about 10 minutes by a Duke Transit bus to go from East to West and vice versa. You have to consider wait time and realize that at peak class times the bus may be full. Sometimes you may wait 10 to 15 minutes for a bus and plus the 10 minute bus ride. So you could have up to 25 minutes for your commute.</p>
<p>When you are a sophomore, junior or senior you may have classes on East. If you have a work study job you may work on Central campus!</p>
<p>If you need to visit the Registrar's office it is off campus near East Campus. The Career Center is also moving from a central location on West campus to an off campus location near East campus.</p>
<p>Personally, I am less than thrilled with the University's trend of moving administrative departments like the Career Center off campus. The needs of the students seem to be overlooked for the convenience of university staff members.</p>
<p>And, yes, my student considered having to take a bus from East to West freshman year inconvenient. You can't just roll out of bed at the last minute and walk to class in 10 minutes or less. And you can't just go back to your dorm room if you have a free hour as the free hour will be taken up with transport time back and forth. So, you have to hang out on West instead of going back to your dorm. You have to be more organized with your time.</p>
<p>The wait times your son/daughter gave you may have been exaggerated through the grape vine. During class hours, the bus arrives every 2-3 minutes. There's typically at least one bus at the stop at all times and it leaves when the next one arrives. The bus ride takes 5 minutes. Thus, it takes around 10 minutes to get to West from East. Not 25 minutes unless it's on the weekend or after 8 pm during the week. It's not a big deal at all and everybody has to deal with it. If your classes are on Science Drive, then the commute is longer since you have a long walk or have to wait for the Science Drive bus. Overall, having a freshman only campus is nice and you'll come to appreciate it. Most people do despite the extra commute time (which isn't that long).</p>
<p>Duke</a> Transit Route Descriptions</p>
<p>C-1 - East-West Weekday travels between East Campus and West Campus. Service is every 3-6 minutes from 7:40 a.m.until 4:20 p.m. and subsequently every 10 minutes. Serves East Campus, West Campus, and Campus Drive bus stops. </p>
<p>Eh C1s are actually a lot better than the rest of the campus. Be glad that freshmen don't need to take the C2/C4 on a regular basis.</p>
<p>Also, a 25 minute commute is not a common occurrence. It might happen once in a while that you didn't really plan out your time and got stuck in peak hours behind a bunch of people. But in general it's usually about 15 minutes. Furthermore, I often find it a relaxing ride to just sit there, listen to my iPod, watch the scenery and not do/think about anything. </p>
<p>As for going back to the dorm with an hour break...I didn't even do that when I was on west. There's simply no point most of the time, unless your class is on the main quad and you live on the main quad, it'll take you around 10-15 minutes to walk to your dorm (from the engineering quad or science drive). A round trip takes about half an hour. For me personally, there's nothing that I can get done in the dorm in half an hour that I couldn't do at the library or elsewhere. Heck, your time would be better spent curled up in an armchair at Bostock or the Bryan center and taking a short nap. </p>
<p>As for work study on central...that's probably a very small minority of students as there are far more positions on both east and west. </p>
<p>Finally, hanging out on west might not be such a bad thing actually. I spend almost all of my 14 hour day on West and only go back to my apartment on Central to get sleep. It's the heart of Duke after all.</p>
<p>Yea in reality there are actually 3 campuses at Duke: East for freshmen, West for sophomores, and Central for Juniors+, generally.</p>
<p>The bus system, in my opinion, could be much improved. Most of the drivers are nice and considerate, but when it gets towards the end of the day or just on some occasions they will pull random stunts like delaying to talk to another driver. The C-1s are nice in that they are every 5 minutes, but the only problem with that is when you are a freshman you generally take the same classes with a lot of other freshmen (i.e. Chem 21, Econ 51, etc). When a class like that gets out, you can imagine the pandemonium for even a fraction of people trying to get on a bus. I’ve actually missed two buses in a row before trying to squeeze onto a C-1. On the other hand, there are some C-1s that are basically empty at certain times of the day. Once you’ve moved onto Central and must take C-2s and C-4s it gets slightly more annoying because they come every 15 or 20 minutes, respectively. I don’t like talking down about the bus system, but its legitimately one of the poorer sides of Duke.</p>
<p>That being said, there is no reason that you should let buses be a reason you don’t come here because there are some many more positives that overwhelm this inconvenience. Just be prepared and you should be fine.</p>