<p>Could someone tell me about life at Duke? Does it seem isolated? Where to the students go for a night out? Anything in walking distance? There isn't a "main street" on campus, or CVS...Are there coffee shops or snack places besides what is on the dining plan?
Just wondering if the students feel too confined.</p>
<p>Also wondering about Fraternity Housing in the apartments. What is that like?</p>
<p>Thanks for the info. You were very informative. What about drugstores on campus?</p>
<p>You can go 4 years without stepping out of the campus if you wanted. It’s self-contained. Obviously, you will and should step out. Brightleaf Square is a good area near the Tobacco District. Main street? Uh…Chapel Drive?</p>
<p>Since it has not been mentioned already, the Washington Duke Inn is on campus (at the intersection of Science Drive and Cameron Blvd.), it is a first-rate hotel (five diamond distinction), with excellent meals and tavern, with the outstanding Duke Golf Club, and with approximately 9,000 acres of the Duke Forest for recreation. In addition, and also on campus, the Duke Gardens are simply magnificent, open year round, and literally three minute walk from the Main Quad.</p>
<p>You WILL feel confined if you are not used to studying/living in a rural campus. There are limited coffee shops/places to hang or study walking distance off campus, and food gets really tiring on East and West after a while. If you’re from a big/medium sized city and used to coffee shops and CVS’ at each corner, maybe Duke might not be right for you.</p>
<p>Hmm…213830, I wouldn’t try projecting out like that. While I cannot argue about the food (where do you really need to study off campus?), I think many people look forward to the fact that it is more rural than a bigger city. And quite frankly you’ll be studying enough of the time to where you won’t really be thinking about those things anyway.</p>
<p>I came from Chicago and the area offered more than enough entertainment/dining/shopping options in my opinion. The vast majority of your time will be spent on campus anyways as there’s more than enough to do. I wouldn’t call Durham “rural” - it’s a city of over 200,000 people. I’d say Duke’s campus is situated more as a “suburban” area, but downtown Durham/Brightleaf Square/Ninth Street/etc. are easily accessible as well (walkable from East campus). There are also off-campus restaurants easily accessible from West campus on Erwin - it has been built up a lot over the past several years.</p>
<p>re: drugstores - there isn’t really one convenient to campus, but there are several convenience stores on campus that have the basics as long as you’re not picky about brands (shampoo, deodorant, kleenex, paper plates, detergent, all that stuff). the dollar general right off east campus is also useful. </p>
<p>For more specialized items, I would just order online - signing up for Amazon Student gives you free 2-day shipping for a year, so whatever I ordered always arrived by the time I would have managed to make it out to a drugstore, anyway.</p>
<p>I think Chicago offers much more entertainment/dining/shopping than Duke by far. I don’t think you can call Northgate a mall. Dining is really limited; almost everyone recognizes this. Entertainment…meh. UChicago has a free express bus that runs hourly from the University to Downtown, or you can take the Jackson Park Express and be in downtown in less than 15 minutes. Public transit just doesn’t exist in Durham and that is the main reason why the location is terrible as an university. Weather-wise, it is fantastic. Everything else, I think it would be a very hard to argue against.</p>
<p>Haha of course public transit exists in Durham. And it’s free for all students. I don’t know why you’re being so down on your own school, just transfer if you think it’s so miserable…</p>
<p>It wasn’t my intent to “be down on my own school” I just wanted to inject a dose of reality to some of the stuff on this thread. For example, yes, public transit exists in Durham, but no one that I know has ever stepped foot on a public bus. I love the campus, the people, and the weather here, but I think it’s a prudent and responsible thing to do as a Dukie to shine light on the less appealing parts of our school that pre-frosh can’t see on a college viewbook. That’s all.</p>
<p>Yeah, it does come with the territory of going to Duke. But I think it’s fairly well know that Duke is in a smaller city/“rural” area so we would expect a lot of these things. </p>
<p>You’re not in London here.</p>
<p>The OP asked where to go for a night out, yet I don’t see the word “Shooters” anywhere. Have any of you even been to Duke before?</p>
<p>The weather is a way bigger deal for most people than the apparent paucity of malls. Just saying.</p>
<p>The weather’s alright- gets pretty cold in the winter and warm in the spring. Most people buy things online if they really need them. My friends and I don’t go to the mall that often.</p>