Duke University Top Questions

The academics at Duke are top notch. Your professors, especially in the large intro classes are leaders in their fields. As a liberal arts major, my workload is much easier than engineers and premed majors. Its difficult but not impossible. One thing that surprised me about the transition from high school to college was how much my professor want to help their students do well, which I've heard is not the case at other schools. In my experience, students are not that competitive. The most unique classes I've taken are Arthurian legend and the psychology of body image, both small seminar classes. One downside to Duke academics is that the majority of students are preprofessional and want to be doctors, lawyers, engineers and investment bankers. If you are not one of these people, you might feel that more resources are put into these other majors.

Academics are great. All my professors knew my name. My music theory professor, (Kelley) was the best teacher I've ever had, spending countless hours out of class helping with my composition and taking us to shows. When I think about it, in my 2 semesters I didn't take a class I didn't like and learn alot from. There are so many opportunities to do things at Duke its kind of ridiculous.

Again it is hard to generalize. Like any other place, you have some teachers that are interested in the students and their progress, and there are some who couldn't pick 4 of their students out of a crowd of 5. For the most part though, the smaller, more advanced classes have naturally better professors, and as a result you get to know them better. The work is not overly hard, nor is the grading. However, the amount can become daunting if you are not caught up.

Duke is hard. Very hard. I never thought I could have so much work, but at the same time I love it! It is interesting stuff and it's important to find what interests you the most and pursue that passion. It is also amazing how the students are not very competitive and always willing to help one another! I also always go to office hours and see my professors out of class to get one on one help which is a huge reason why I survived last semester. The libraries are always crowded which shows me how much other students car about their work. You also find so many intelligent conversations throughout the student body!

The academics at Duke are pretty much what you make of them. You can take a lot of lecture classes if you want or you can take all small classes where the professors know your name and you can easily have a conversation with them outside of class. And then there are the classes in the middle, where the professors don't care about learning/can't learn their students' names. I prefer the small classes by far. Freshman are required to take a Writing 20 class with a specialized topic and a seminar class. I have found that the amount that people study varies A LOT. I have friends who study all the time and then I have friends who don't study much at all and still do relatively well. I think that the difficulty of Duke changes hugely depending on your major. Engineering is definitely the hardest, pre-med is probably the most work, and History is probably the easiest.

Duke classes are hard. They are really hard. I did awesome in math in high school, but as a former engineer, math was one of my toughest subjects so far at Duke. Despite the rigorous curriculum, students here manage to balance their time, study hard, and do well in classes.

Engineering courses here are very challenging. You will work twice as hard as anyone else at the university. BUT, engineers are less competitive, and work well together. There is a definite sense of company through the academic misery. But every single engineer I know had multiple opportunities at graduation. The outcome is definitely worth it!

Smaller classes with challenging academics. Some of my first year classes were taught by researchers who didn't seem to care about teaching -it was a requirement for them. Others actually seemed like I should have been paying the money to be there. Not sure if that's just a result of larger freshman lectures though. Students are very competitive and have very intellectual conversations outside of class. I major in Biomedical Engineering and the courses seem interesting and hands-on. My teacher for the course however was clearly brilliant but didn't give a shit about the course itself. He was preoccupied with his research. The education at Duke is probably above average, but it is more the Duke name that gets you in the door, rather than the education itself.

They need to post signs saying: BEWARE, PREMED KIDS EVERYWHERE! They work too hard, they care too much, and they'll skew the curve in every class you'll take. On the other hand- if you're an aspiring premed, you're in the right place, the Med school is awesome, and you'll be very well prepared for the MCATs and beyond.

You can choose the level of involvement you want in your classes. When you get to college, you start to realize that "mandatory" doesn't quite mean the same thing anymore. You can easily get away with not going to any classes in the big lectures and still get an A by doing well on the tests. But if you want to interact with the professors, they're very open to it. Each professor actually gets a certain number of free meals paid for every semester if they take students to eat.