Class of 2028
(He/Him/His)
A.B. Duke Scholar
Hometown: Virginia Beach, Virginia
Major: Physics and Political Science ("Astropolitics")
Hobbies and Interests: Feigning proficiency at acoustic guitar; exploring Western esotericism; weightlifting; sailing; not a so-called "political junkie," (as has become the somewhat tired metaphor) but still excitable enough to churn out an extended thesis on Kaiser Wilhelm II; arousing the American Esperanto revivalist movement; Rene Magritte; cryptography; cooking; fantasy football; satire; basketball, baseball, golf; social entomology; Franz Kafka; astrophotography; filmmaking (somewhere between Kubrick and Kaufman); semi-casual enjoyer of absurdism; systematically memorizing everyone in the history of the American presidential succession; poetry; would like to know more about architectural drawing, blacksmithing; changing the world (and those that follow) would be nice.
Why Duke?
Nothing quite erodes years off the lifespan like an unbroken routine. So often do we resign ourselves to a beaten track, the same meals for breakfast, the same playlists for the bus, the same activities of so-called leisure to distract us from an otherwise unwavering self-proclaimed so-called purpose that our minds simply filter out these moments of unimportant minutiae, and our lives transubstantiates into sand. I came to Duke because I didn't want this for myself, and have since joyfully abstained from predictability.
The hallmarks of these "Why Duke?," essays - the collaborative, "interdisciplinary" environment, the work-life balance, or even those exciting idiosyncrasies like Cameron Stadium or the Duke Lemur Center - make for good supporting details in a paragraph, but not a justification in and of themselves. What it means to be a Duke student is to walk with confidence in your demeanor and ambition in your eyes, at a university far more excited to invest its intellectual capital into you than someone who would prefer to take the calculated and tested trajectory. I can produce no better testament to this fact than their serendipitous endowment of a scholarship to someone who can rarely explain their intended major in under two minutes. Time spent at the Rubenstein Archives or Space Diplomacy Lab are now integral to my daily machinations: both were unknowns a year ago.
Duke wants you to generate your future, not paraphrase someone else's: a freshly manufactured burlap bag will leak far less sand than one previously used.