Upon coming to Duke, I was immediately struck by my own inadequacies. Never before had I ever been surrounded by such amazingly talented and diverse individuals, and I began to question whether I belonged here or not. I had been rejected or waitlisted to a majority of the other schools I had applied to, and I was already questioning whether Duke had made a mistake on me. The list of superhuman accomplishments completed by my classmates spouted off at convocation didn’t help anything. How could I compare to people who have discovered noninvasive ways to spot early stages of cancer? How could I compare to CEOs, gold medalists, and researchers? I came to the conclusion that I couldn’t. I came to the conclusion that I could not compare. I came to the conclusion that Duke had made a mistake.
After deciding this was true, I also decided that I was the only one who felt this way. After all, I was at Duke. Everyone was perfect. Looking around, that was all I saw: perfection. These people weren’t only impossibly intelligent; they were also balanced, attractive, social, and diverse individuals who seemed to have everything under control. It was not until I began to express my thoughts about this that I realized that I was not the only person with these feelings. So many around me questioned their acceptances—people who I had included in my group of perfection. Upon realizing this, I stopped focusing so much on the fact that others were so much more qualified than me, and began to focus on all of the opportunities I had to meet such unique individuals. When I did this, I met even more people with similar mindsets as me.
I don’t know why I decided to write this, but perhaps there are other people here that are still feeling inadequate. It’s time we stopped mourning our own inadequacies and started celebrating others’ talents.