37.5%

    Wow; is it really that time again? 37.5% done? Already?

    I once again find myself on the long journey home, taking many of the same routes I took the first time. This time, my friends and I drove from Durham to Northern Virginia, where I spent a couple days with one of my best friends. On this road trip, I was slightly more useful: I’m now licensed to get behind the wheel (and I’m very grateful to my friends for teaching me how to drive). From there, it was a train to New York City, where I was lucky enough to reunite with a friend from Hong Kong whom I hadn’t seen in fourteen years. And now I’m on the plane writing this blog post, just like the past two semesters, and hopefully like the next five.

    This semester began a little differently than last. I came to campus a week and a half early to carry out my orientation leader (OL) duties for Project Play (PPlay). That week was one of the most enjoyable of my semester. My friends and I often talk about how much fun Duke is without the constant backdrop of work. So many of the best moments with friends are spaced between stretches of academic struggle, which makes each joyful moment feel fleeting. You know you’ll be back in the library a couple days later. Orientation week, though, is different. It’s dedicated purely to your friends and the present moment, before classes have the chance to take anything away from it.

    It also gave me the chance to introduce Duke to my kids in the way I wish Duke had been introduced to me. I did my best to tell them about the “hidden rules” I wish I’d known, and the opportunities I would have taken advantage of if I could do it over. But I also tried to emphasize that a lot about college is something you have to learn for yourself. No matter how prepared you are, or how much advice someone tries to give, you still have to engage with the unknown and the transition. There’s a kind of difficulty you have to face, and eventually grow comfortable living inside. I told my kids this because it was one of the biggest lessons of my first 25%.

    After O-Week passed, the semester rolled around, and college became real once again. Being on West Campus was a unique experience. Suddenly you didn’t have to build in a thirty-minute buffer to get to class, and you were afforded a precious amount of extra sleep. But day-to-day life also felt a bit more chaotic. East Campus always felt peaceful, like coming home after a long day of school. This year, home and school coincided, which sometimes made things noisier.

    At the same time, most juniors were off on their study abroad adventures and many seniors were fairly checked out. In a sense, West Campus started to belong to the sophomores, and that sense of community held. The thing I missed most, however, was Marketplace. Communal eating had to become a bit more organized and disciplined. Dinner with friends became something you planned, rather than something that happened naturally. But maybe that mirrors a necessary transition too. It is learning to be intentional about who you spend your time around.

    Much of this post, then, has been about the mechanics of transitioning to sophomore year, and how that transition changed our experience of college. I mentioned in my 25% post that much of the joy of freshman year was the innocence of the process. At that point, most of our focus was on spending time with friends and building relationships that would last through college and, hopefully, beyond. Of course, people were doing cool things on their own time, but there was still a shared emphasis on finding your people and making your time with them count.

    Sophomore year, though, begins to bring job applications and future aspirations into sharper focus. Unfortunately, that can pull college a little away from its initial feeling.

    It’s kind of crazy how early that shift happens, right at the start of sophomore year, but it also makes sense. Duke students come in a few familiar “flavors.” The school is especially pre-professional. That’s not to say our student body isn’t extraordinarily talented, or that students don’t go on to do amazing things across every field. But if you ask most people here, they’ll admit it often feels like the majority of students fit into a handful of buckets: finance, tech, pre-med, or engineering. There’s diversity beyond that, but a lot of the campus energy lives inside those bounds.

    And once you’re in a bucket, working toward those goals becomes more conscious and more urgent, particularly sophomore fall. It creates a sense of immediacy and risk. Sometimes it can feel like if you don’t succeed right now, you won’t land a summer internship or won’t get into medical school, and suddenly your post-grad outlook looks grim, even though graduation is still five semesters away. The opportunity cost of each action starts to feel more deliberate, and the landscape gets more competitive.

    On top of that, being surrounded by so many competitive students, often working toward the same goals, can make you feel like you are falling behind. That’s a difficult reality to reckon with. But in a way, it’s also a necessary part of the experience. College isn’t supposed to be completely sunshine and rainbows. It is supposed to have some intrinsic difficulty that builds your resilience.

    At the same time, it’s perfectly okay not to be fully engaged in those processes at all. It is okay to focus on your path and commit to that. We still have five semesters left and more than enough time to figure out who we want to be. I often fall into that uncertain category. I feel unsure whether the things I am doing are worthwhile, and afraid I don’t have a clear trajectory for how my future will work out. It’s hard to feel that way when it seems like some people already have their entire lives planned. But my hope is that if I focus on the processes I choose and try to be a good person to the people around me, things will work out for me and for the people I care about. Maybe that’s naïve, but it lets me stay grounded in my own experience.

    This shift in sophomore year also emphasizes the importance of your relationships. In many cases, these paths can feel like journeys you have to undertake alone, but they’re not. They’re paths you walk alongside the people around you. Classes are hard. Lab work is hard. Recruiting is hard. Studying is hard. What gets you through it is the people around you: people who are just as driven and talented as you (even if it’s in a different field), who can sympathize with you and console you when you’re feeling down.

    This year also gives your friends more opportunities to show up for you. The problems around us start to feel more real, no longer cushioned by the fever-dream quality of freshman year. The person you enjoy spending time with gradually becomes someone you rely on, and you become that person for them too. It’s reminded me to prioritize time with the people I care about, and not let anything interfere with that. Those foundational experiences, time spent together and support offered in hard moments, are what turn college friends into lifelong friends. I still see my parents lean on their college friends in times of distress, and vice versa. I imagine those bonds were built the same way.

    I’m excited to come back next semester. In many ways, I feel lucky that I get to. I don’t know what the semester will bring. It may be success or it may be failure. It may be easy or it may be difficult. It may be fun or it may be stressful. What I do know is that I have the right people around me: people I can celebrate with in the good times and lean on in the hard ones. And I hope to be that same person for them.

    Another 12.5% awaits, and the end of next semester will mark the halfway point of college. There’s no time machine :) to take us back, but there’s plenty of excitement to drive us forward. See you in five months, or sooner, if inspiration finds me.

[ndg]