Open Microsoft Outlook. Thank you for your interest in [insert pre-professional organization here], but we regret to inform you… Shoot. Move on, distract myself. Open LinkedIn. Immediate mistake: a barrage of posts from classmates about their checked boxes, which I have yet to check. I still need a summer internship for next year. The list of unchecked boxes grows, and I am drowning in pre-professional pressure.
Economics. Pre-law track. Consulting track. Public policy. A Wall Street hopeful here, a D.C.-bound classmate there. If I had a dollar for every Instagram post that reinforced my perceived inadequacy, I’d actually be able to afford Duke’s tuition on my own dime.
Once upon a time, universities were ivy-coated institutions where intellectually curious students went to learn the secrets of the universe.
Or so I believed.
The mythos of the great American liberal arts university, producer of the zenith of human creative ability, is more than likely just that —a myth, at least for most. Financial factors have long limited the pursuit of the liberal arts to a select few, scholarships notwithstanding. And with elite university tuition steadily rising, it doesn’t make financial sense to plunge headfirst into mastering the Greek classics.
My lofty liberal ideal began to drift into oblivion as a culture of prestige and profit consumed me: adieu, l’idéal de la libre enquête.
As I settled into Duke, reality felt different. I asked myself: Are we moving a little too far in the other direction? Should the liberal arts be reduced to a mere footnote in the ever-evolving story of the elite university? I was surprised by what I perceived as a lack of creative, intellectual discourse among students. For many, the ultimate goal seemed to be to make as much money as possible, to the point that ambitions of wealth transgress mere return on educational investment.
The four most commonly pursued majors at Duke, according to the most recent available official data, are computer science, economics, biology, and public policy. I’ve met countless students in these majors (except perhaps biology) who seem to have a meager interest in their intended subject, beyond the seductive salary and lifestyle they expect at the end of the journey.
And yet, when I speak to many of these students, they do have cool intellectual interests and beliefs, as expected for anyone intelligent and attuned enough to attend Duke. They just don’t pursue them.
I serve as an editor for The Chronicle’s opinion section, where one of my writers wrote a brilliant piece questioning why Duke had what he perceived as a shockingly low amount of student activism, and concluded that the looming presence of corporate culture on campus curtails students from engaging not only out of fear that controversial activism will cost them professional opportunities but that their overwhelming focus on making money means “activism inevitably hits the backburner.”
This pre-professional cultural contagion is a contagion in the truest sense, and its inescapable influence means that, like activism, intellectual activity often takes a back seat to career-oriented concerns. I was not immune.
I came into Duke wide-eyed and excited by the intellectual possibilities; the options for study seemed endless. Hell, Duke even has an individualized degree program (Program II), an initiative seemingly designed to accommodate unique academic interests.
(I know little about Program II, but it is not well-explained or advertised by Duke, which, besides being a result of the cultural issue I’m critiquing here, could point to fault with the university itself. Only a handful of students choose to pursue it. While their programs of study are fascinating, I can’t help but notice that apparently only one student in my class has decided on this option.)
The student with a penchant for curriculum design may simply not attend Duke. Maybe they’re studying somewhere like Brown. Not everyone needs to be one of these students, but we are certainly not evenly spread between hardline corporate hopefuls and creative individualists.
It’s strange to realize that the most flexible program at Duke, which should really be the most welcoming, instead felt the most out of reach. Program II just didn’t seem like a reality for me. Feelings of isolation in my longing for something different began to trickle in—and I’m aware of the air of pretension such a statement carries. It was more a matter of the theory that maybe Duke and I were just not simpatico.
Or maybe absolute intellectual freedom was generally rarer than I thought, but I wasn’t content to just accept that notion.
As such thoughts bounced around my head, move-in day was fast approaching. I continued to conduct research, and even many Program I options started to fade from my view. I wanted to feel like I was doing the “right thing” (i.e., what everyone else was doing) as I rolled into Durham. I was nervous and overwhelmed, especially since I didn’t have any meaningful in-person connections with Duke alums or current students, partly due to the small student population from my home state. Instead, I was left paralyzed by the endless student profiles on Instagram, which featured those aforementioned and seemingly ubiquitous intended majors. Everyone else had it figured out. Why didn’t I?
I felt adrift amidst a sea of students with clear career paths. I was faced with mounting uncertainty and felt pressure to find a sphere and stick to it. No doubt I was conforming, like many a befuddled 18-year-old before me. No doubt I should have taken an alternative route and let my passion for curiosity lead me. But hindsight is 20/20—then, public policy seemed an acceptable major, even respectable, and it felt personally tolerable, even if I had never expressed much interest in policy up to that point. So public policy it was.
Not completely satisfied with my choice, I began my intro class to public policy. I took my seat in the expansive yet crowded Old Chemistry building lecture hall and started to wonder. Was I alone in feeling discomfort?
It wasn’t clear then just how many felt the same way I did, yet hesitated to take up disciplines that truly felt “right” to them, in favor of sticking to the beaten path.
This situation forced me to question what I truly valued, and I ultimately deduced that public policy wasn’t for me. I found myself laughing at the idea of seriously working in policy. I knew the slightly anarchistic—or at least ideologically libertarian—views I had spent many happy hours cultivating in high school wouldn’t fit neatly into the prestigious Washington D.C. internships for which my peers vied. Public policy had seemed like a safe choice, but actually experiencing the coursework confirmed that my true passions lay elsewhere.
Of course, we need public policy graduates, and now, more than ever, there is a pressing need to fight against executive overreach. The importance of the discipline is evident, and Duke’s public policy programs are phenomenal. However, I wanted a stake in the ideas that form the foundation of policy, rather than the world of politics itself. And what were these ideas if not philosophy? What would be Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, if not for Locke’s theory of natural rights? What would be MLK’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” if not for Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience”?
Grandiose, yes—but this realization led me to pursue opportunities where I could tangibly engage with philosophy in an environment that valued authentic intellectual exploration. Soon, the ideals of intellectual discovery in a supportive community, which I had thought unattainable amidst rushing to join various pre-professional organizations, finally began to manifest—in a more realistic, era-appropriate way. I started seeking opportunities and finding them, and discovered others who shared my frustration with Duke’s corporate focus. I owe a lot to organizations like The Lemur (genuinely, they don’t pay me for this), organizations where passion still thrives, waiting patiently for those who wish to seek it. I have not only found an outlet for my curiosity but also discovered an off-the-beaten-path side of Duke where eccentric intellectualism lives.
It didn’t occur to me as a public policy major desperately trying to rush Scale and Coin that a few semesters later, I’d be in a room passionately discussing whether Burke or Paine got it right on the French Revolution, the clock rolling past our 6:30 pm endtime, but no one leaving because we all really love the debate.
Of course, I want to make money (and I find it hard to fully bash anyone unapologetic about this desire). I am not so above it all to deny that I’d like to own a Mercedes-Benz 380 SL at some point, and philosophy is a degree that doesn’t so neatly fulfill that goal, at least in the short term. (It helps to have a sense of humor about it, by the way. When people ask what I plan to do with a philosophy degree, I like to smirk and tell them that I want to live in a barrel on the street, like Diogenes.)
In all honesty, I feel incredibly fortunate that, in this era in which the liberal arts are in decline, I can still experience the spirit of intellectualism on which I’d pinned my college aspirations.
It just takes a little effort. I’ve come to understand that meaningful engagement with the liberal arts doesn’t just happen. Robin Williams isn’t going to pop out of nowhere, stand on my desk, and tell me to carpe diem, as in my pre-college dreams. It’s up to me. I learned that if I wasn’t happy floating about campus, living from one pre-professional rush event to another, I had to carpe diem in a way that aligns with my vision of college.
Jerry Garcia once sang, “You just got to poke around.” The Grateful Dead, as philosophically astute as ever, got it right. You just got to poke around. Join an organization that actually excites you, meet that professor for coffee, read a ton of Kant, and submit your ramblings to that magazine you found.
You poke around enough, you get it down to a science, and you’re empowered to take even more intellectual risk. You find opportunities that feel authentic to yourself, your mind, and your values. “Poking around” isn’t the most eloquent term, but it’s the best way I can express this attitude of unbridled curiosity. I believe it would serve Duke well if more of its students adopted “poking around” as their watchword, instead of the all-pervasive concept of “networking.”
Using this mindset, I’ve launched into surprising and exciting places that disillusioned and bored first-semester me could never have envisioned. This summer, I decided to take my studies of philosophy to a different place, literally. I had initially enrolled in a “Duke-In” study abroad program simply because that’s what everyone else was doing, and it felt like what I should be doing. However, it didn’t offer the philosophy courses I precisely wanted. Almost on a lark, I started to research the best international philosophy schools, and (expecting absolutely nothing) sent in applications. And hey, I haven’t conquered Duke, but two years ago I was in hour five of a rush event for an organization I didn’t want to join, and this fall I’ll be at Oxford. So, risks do sometimes pay off.
I pivoted to philosophy at Duke, the proverbial road less traveled, and it really has made all the difference. If I can impart one piece of advice from someone who was too risk-adverse for too long, it would be to take that intellectual risk, then deal with the background noise later. When you find others who share your authentic interests, that background noise will fade—maybe even completely.
by Cara Eaton
