It’s that time of year again—Thanksgiving is come and gone and ChristmaHannuKwanzaa is around the corner. Oh, and class registration for the spring semester too. After days of stalking your bookbag on ACES to ensure that your planned schedule is still green instead of yellow (wait-listing sucks), and all the stress of beating everyone else to get that coveted “easy” class or essential major elective has subsided, you are finally free to visualize how your new semester will go. I always envision mine going something like this: work work work meeting new friends work work work work work dreaded research paper more work WEDNESDAY NIGHT SHOOTERS.
Yet it feels like every new semester starts off the same: during syllabus week everyone stakes out a spot in the room and from then on, there is an unspoken agreement that those are the unofficial assigned seats. Groups form within the class like wildfire, and it seems impossible to talk to new people unless you’ve already formed some sort of rapport during the first two weeks.
As a result, almost all of my best friends are either people who lived in my dorm freshman year, random connections made from Shooters, or people I met during first semester parties. For some reason, once Recruitment is over and people settle into their various Greek affiliations, it becomes infinitely harder yet easier to make friends. If you’re in the same sorority or fraternity as someone, you automatically spend more time with them. As a result of getting to know them better, you become closer friends. Same thing goes for people your sorority or fraternity mix with, so while a good number of students on campus are Greek, the actual social circles within Greek life remain restricted.
It’s not as if unfamiliar faces don’t exist on campus. We see strangers all the time—in line at the Loop, on the plaza, in the weight room. However, it’s as if invisible barriers hold us back from being friendly, and people who approach strangers are usually regarded as creepy and annoying. It’s only at night when we’ve ingested some liquid courage and are either at Shooters or partying with our already established groups that it becomes acceptable to go up to people and introduce ourselves. Granted, I know I don’t exactly exude friendliness—I have my Jersey glare down pat and hardly make eye contact with people when I’m walking around. I mean, when I have places to go and things to do, a slightly awkward conversation with strangers or near acquiantances is the last thing on my agenda.
But think back to all the relationships we cherish now and remember how they started: two strangers, giving one another a chance to show their true colors. At Duke, we’re all driven and ambitious and busy as hell, but college is more than the resume we put together of our extracurricular and academic accomplishments—it’s also about making lifelong friends and broadening our horizons. We are in the perfect place for that right now: there is an overwhelmingly diverse student body, rich in life experiences and hopes and dreams that can only be augmented by sharing.
For example, my friend told me about an international classmate of hers in her education class. Growing up, this fellow Duke student was motivated to work hard at her studies because she wanted her classmates to see her as more than just a member of an untouchable caste, but instead as a respectable scholar and potential friend. For more details, you can read her first-hand account here. While her story of overcoming an unbelievable obstacle is awe-inspiring, think of how many other similarly amazing stories we all carry around inside of us. The beautiful thing about life is that despite our individual backgrounds, we are all united by our desire to feel heard, accepted, and understood. This is my challenge for you—and me—in the next month, give five friends-of-a-friend or random strangers on the bus a chance. A chance to tell you his or her story, and a chance to listen to yours. Together, we can only be more awesome.