Reach for the Nebula! Finding Your Niche at Duke

The thespians. The feminists. The almost neo-Proterozoic sponsored athletes. These are the same divisional groups from high school, just with fancier names. With a smaller student population, Duke’s social/extracurricular groups can seem exclusionary. Either you have it or you don’t. If you haven’t quite found your niche yet, then it can almost feel like you’re an outcast of sorts. And good luck finding anyone to hang out with on the weekends.
 
But I’m encouraging you to not think of Duke’s blended social/extracurricular scene as set in stone, ever-fixed, and stagnant in the stereotypes. You never know what fantastic group could be waiting for you just around the corner—if only you have the courage to venture out of your comfort zone. Go to that audition. Ace that performance aptitude test. Blow their minds in that try-out. Yeah, it will be intimidating to put yourself out there. But you never know until you try. The most you have to lose are those few minutes you spent going for the gold and a touch of pride. But what you can potentially gain so outweighs the lost: as you walk out, in a post-audition euphoria, knowing you gave it your all and pushed yourself out of your comfort zone, then no matter what the outcome is, you will have gained something. And, who knows, you might just get that callback.
 
I didn’t find my “calling” here until halfway through my sophomore year when I let my inner Shakespeare freak fly. I’ve talked to collegiettes in their junior and senior years who are just discovering their passions. Do they regret finding out so ‘late’ in their Duke careers? Wouldn’t such a thing lace the end of their journey with a sense of regret? Au contraire—it has served to invigorate them, and they count their lucky stars that they were able to find that connective passion right before the finish line.

It’s never too late to count your lucky stars, my dear collegiettes. Never let the fear of not attaining that prized nebula keep you from reaching for it. My buddy Buzz Lightyear is automatically programmed to say “Reach for the stars!” in a star-command voice. I say reach for the nebula, a star-clustered little cloud of ultraviolet radiation absorption. (What a mouthful.) I say nebula because the potential star, galaxy, or planet has yet to have formed from the debris of a supernova explosion.  In those fantastic rays of ultraviolet light, wherein the future is super-charged with potential, the future is not quite set in stone. That is to say, my dears, you have the power to determine your own future. In the light that is our college adventure, in the potential rising of what may come of this cloud, you have the power to create the type of nebula you will.
 
And it all begins with a little supernova explosion that could. And so can you.
 
 
Live long and prosper. (I couldn’t resist—hey, we’re talking star command here!)
 
 
Photocredits:
Nebulaàhttp://www.oberlin.edu/physics/dstyer/Astronomy/Nebulae/OrionNebula.jpg
Buzz Lightyearàhttp://wallpaperpassion.com/upload/10725/buzz-lightyear-toy-story-3-wall…