<p>my firiend is a rather social person and she visited Duke University. She told me the atmosphere was gloomy and depressing (and its in the middle of nowhere). </p>
<p>I have lived in Chicago all my life and it is a great city! Everything is accessible through public transportation and the lake is a great resource.</p>
<p>
Your friend is laughably wrong on both accounts. </p>
<p>I am not a big Duke fan, but really, the amount of misinformation spread on this site is shocking.</p>
<p>Im sorry if that was misinformation.
I just wanted to add my two cents about Duke.
Maybe the guy my friend was with was just really depressing and stupid.</p>
<p>If nanotech is what you really care about, Northwestern is very hard to beat.
Just google nanotech+northwestern/brown/carnegie mellon/etc. to see which has the most/best papers…</p>