Fuqua's Blue Devil Weekend Day 1

I can't believe it's already been a week since I got back from Blue Devil Weekend. It seems both like it was forever ago and just yesterday at the same time. It was a really fun and extremely tiring weekend at the same time.

To save money, I decided to take the red-eye out of San Francisco on Thursday night which put me into Durham, NC at 8:30am on Friday morning. It was a very early arrival and I didn't sleep much on the plane, but that's what you do to make it to a noon meeting on Friday. Luckily, the Washington-Duke Inn, where we stayed all weekend, let me check in very early on Friday morning so I caught a bit of a nap and a shower before wandering down to the Association of Women in Business luncheon. It was great to meet all of the women and minorities who were there from my class. I also got to talk to Cynthia from the admissions office who helped me get my admissions packet which I had never received in the mail.

Right before lunch, I also met my roommate for the weekend, Lisa from Boston. She was on the opposite end of the spectrum from me in terms of how decided we were on going to Fuqua. She had already sent in her deposit for the Class of 2011 and I was merely checking out the school for the first time. That seemed to be pretty common over the course of the weekend among other students. They were either almost totally decided or were completely undecided, but then I guess that's why you make it a point to come to an admitted students weekend.

After the diversity activities care of AWIB, we wandered over to the Fuqua building for happy hour. Let me just say that the Fuqua building at Duke was the thing that most impressed me all weekend. It's a gorgeous facility!! The building was designed both for form and function. The classrooms are well laid out, but there are also a lot of larger spaces with lots of light and trees inside the building. A great asset for the students of Fuqua since they basically live in that building. Next, the first years welcomed us with a great deal of energy and enthusiasm, reminding us that we had joined Team Fuqua and were now responsible for shaping our own business school experience. From the welcome from the first years, we moved over to the Activities and Housing Fair that gave us good insights into the variety of organizations and clubs that we could be involved in for both fun and professional development as well as the housing options available to Fuqua students.

I will spend just another moment on housing. First, I was unable to go to the housing tour on Sunday which took students around to the most popular housing options and allowed them to see model apartments. In spite of missing the formal tour, I was able to get an informal tour of the area from a girl that I had started talking with on the Fuqua Class of 2011 Facebook group where I also met my roommate for the weekend. All of the apartment complexes looked wonderful! The mosquito nets on the windows were a poignant reminder of the quanity of bugs that I'd encounter during my first summer at Duke. What was even more shocking was that these really nice apartments ranged from $700-1200 a month!?! What a bargain!

After all of the formal activities were done for the day, we headed out to downtown Durham in busloads. I have to say that I really didn't fall in love with Durham as a town in spite of what others had said before I visited. It's a really small, older town that's very spread out. You definitely need a car to get around and a lot of the restaurants and stores are older and a bit weathered. On the flip side, drinks are ridiculously cheap! $7 got both a beer and a cocktail for the evening.

With a light buzz, my already exhausted self headed back to the Waah-Doo as the Washington Duke is referred for a couple of hours sleep before a very busy Saturday!

Stay tuned for the next post of Saturday's academic experiences as well as my first look at Duke's undergraduate campus.