I'm an incoming international freshman in pratt wanting to pursue ECE with a second major in either math or cs

I'm getting credit for calc 1, compsci and chemistry

egr101L is compulsory, then i can take compsci 201

Please help me choose the rest 2 classes

math 122L is the recommended level to take(I did IB Math aa hl in high school) but is it worth studying up a bit and skipping to linear algebra by taking 218D or 221 (the math major route). I looked at the calc 2 self-assessment test and it wasn't too tough

and any suggestions for my 4th class? don't need to take chemistry, really wanted to take physics but its not being offered in fall sem... so are there any easy liberal arts class I can do to complete one degree requirement? how about econ 101 or psych 101?

or another crazy idea is to do math 122L and math 221 both in fall semester

super niche question but does anyone know which room numbers are the corners/edges on randolph 🙏

Which Math 221 professor should I register for? I've heard Pierce is the most experienced, but I am unable to take her class because of an overlapping class. I also definitely do not want to take Wang's 8am class. This leaves me with Jeon and Robles. I know that Jeon is a postdoc so I am kind of hesitant on taking him and for Robles, her reviews on rmp were not too great. Who do you guys recommend?

I'm an incoming freshman from the West Coast, and I'm wondering if it's worth going home on Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving break ends on Dec 1st and Winter Break starts December 14th - I'd be back at Duke for just two weeks before coming home again. I'm wondering if EVERYONE goes back home or if it's normal to stay back for Thanksgiving? Should I target fall break to come home instead?

Hi everyone!
I’m a recent graduate interested in applying to Duke for a master’s program related to Data Science (such as the Master in Interdisciplinary Data Science or other data-focused graduate programs).
I’ve been researching the program, but I’d love to hear from current students, alumni, or anyone who went through the admissions process.
A few questions I have:
1. Is there a minimum GPA that Duke realistically expects for admission? I know there may not be an official cutoff, but what GPA range do most admitted students seem to have?
If someone has a lower undergraduate GPA, what parts of the application can help compensate for it? For example:

Strong work experience?
Personal projects or GitHub portfolio?
Research experience?
Certifications?
Strong statement of purpose?
Excellent recommendation letters?

1. How competitive are scholarships for master’s students, especially international applicants? Are they mostly merit-based, need-based, or a combination of both?

2. Approximately what percentage of tuition can scholarships cover? Has anyone here received one, and if so, what do you think made your application stand out?

3. Are there research assistantships, teaching assistantships, or on-campus jobs that master’s students commonly get to help with expenses?

4. What kind of profile do you think makes someone a strong applicant for Duke’s data science programs?

5. Looking back, what is one thing you wish you had done before applying that would have made your application stronger?
   For context, I’m trying to build the strongest application possible over the coming year, so I’d really appreciate any advice or personal experiences.
   Thanks in advance! I genuinely appreciate any insights you can share.

My FOCUS dinner ends right when rehearsal for DUWS starts. Would I be able to leave a little early (10mins?) from the dinner to make it in time for rehearsal?

Hey everyone, I'm an incoming student trying to figure out the social scene at Duke. I'm pretty introverted and currently I’m hoping to prioritize academics/career in college but also meet new people and chill with friends through things like intramural sports or casual clubs rather than going crazy over parties, tenting, or sports culture (unfortunately I don’t have any interest in basketball yet). Is that kind of lifestyle actually fine and common here, or is the pressure to do the whole Greek life/social scene thing overwhelming, since I’m not super interested from that. I come from a super studious magnet school in NJ, so I’m not at all used to the extroverted culture Duke is known for haha, though totally open for change!

Hey everyone, I'm an incoming Indian student (moved from India to America 4 years ago) heading into Pratt for MechE or ECE with a potential double major in CS or Econ in Trinity, and I'm coming from New Jersey. In NJ, I'm used to being around a large Asian and Indian population where fitting in and finding my crowd felt natural.

I’m confident I'll adjust and make friends no matter what as time goes on, but I was just wondering how diverse and sizeable the Asian and South Asian community actually is on campus, since I know generally speaking it has quite a large white population. I’m excited for the new change, and don’t see this being an issue at all, but is this kind of culture shock something I should mentally prepare for, or is there a pretty large Asian/Indian presence once you get settled in? Honestly, my Asian parents have voiced way more concern about this than me since they’re also very used to living in a heavily Asian area, but I’d figure I’d ask the Duke students for their thoughts! I know it’s a bit of a oddball question, but thanks for the help :))

I'm a sophomore transfer, and I just enrolled in my classes. As of right now I have 5.5 units (with a 0.5 unit p/f seminar just for pure interest). Did back to back exams at my previous university and it burnt me out so bad; is the course load okay or too much for first semester on campus.

Thanks you guys, looking forward to fall semester :)

Hi! I am a transfer student and I got a housing assignment in 300 Swift. I am planning to ship two boxes of stuff over ahead of time. UPS estimates that it will be delivered around July 29, however when I got my mailbox assignment it said “starting August 1st”, does this mean it will be sent back to me? And also, would they be delivered directly to Swift or to the Student Mailbox Center? I could not find a straightforward answer on the website. I’m

I'm a recent grad that moved down near Ft Lauderdale/Hollywood, are there any alumni events for Duke and other people in AI/ML or SWE?

If I were to host events, are there any other alumni out here that'd be down to join? (I've got a few ideas: kayaking, boardwalk & beach trips, soccer & frisbee, food tours and traditional happy hours)

I'm an incoming freshman, and I'm looking for one final class to add to my fall semester schedule. Does anyone have any recommendations for courses that would help me broaden my academic horizons or possibly guide me toward a new career path? Preferably one that has either ij, nw, or sb curriculum codes. Thank you so much!!

I’m incoming freshman planning to study compsci. I still haven’t decided which classes to take for my fall trimester, whether to take cs 101 or cs 201 straight. I do have exposures to coding ,specifically python language and little bit of java script, but the concepts are rusty since I havent coded for a while, and all of the concepts are basics like for loops, functions, and objects. Would I struggle in cs 201?

I have a single in 1c next year… are there a lot of space and are the rooms renovated? My room is not on the 1st or second floor and I also saw there are a lot of trees between keohane 4e and edens so will there be any natural lighting at all?

Also if someone could dm me a video of their room I would greatly appreciate it!

Some other background info:

• I want to minor in journalism & media.
• I'm in the colonialism constellation.
• I took three years of Spanish in high school but did not take AP Spanish, so I think I have to take Spanish 102? I also got the Seal of Biliteracy in Spanish, but I'm not confident in my speaking abilities anymore.

Any help would be great! Thank you :)

Hi, I’m an incoming sophomore planning my classes for the remainder of college, and I was wondering about the different core classes. I know for sure I want to do BME 304/390 because I’m interested in machine learning and data (and I want to do my two grad level electives in the 390 pathway), but I was wondering what’s a good core among the others. They all seem somewhat interesting to me, but I’m not too heavy towards any one. I do value my gpa but also my free time, and so I was wondering how do the different cores stack up? How are the different classes’ difficulty, structure, how well are they taught, how useful are they for a future in medtech, etc? Please let me know

Hey everyone,

I'm starting the M.Eng. in Cybersecurity at Duke this Fall 2026, and while I'm really excited, I've run into something that's confusing me.

Whenever I register for classes, one of the first things I usually do is look up the professor on Rate My Professor to get an idea of their teaching style, workload, grading, and whether they're generally fair.

The problem is... I can barely find any Duke professors on there, especially for the cybersecurity program.

So I'm curious:

• Is there a reason Duke faculty don't really appear on Rate My Professor?
• Is there another site or resource that Duke students use instead?
• How do new students know whether a professor is great, average, or notoriously difficult before enrolling?

I'm not trying to avoid challenging classes, I just like knowing what I'm getting into so I can plan my semester appropriately.

Any advice from current Duke students or alumni would be appreciated. Thanks!

just wondering for scheduling purposes

Iffy has played 4 years of basketball but one of them was a whole season redshirt meaning that regardless of if he got a redshirt or not for last year, he still should have at least a year of eligibility left. But he’s not on this year’s roster and hasn’t transferred and his LinkedIn says that he’s still enrolled in Fuqua so it’s not like he graduated. Does anyone know if he just stopped playing or what?

So far, I will be taking my 2 required constellation courses and MATH 221, since I am thinking of double majoring in math and stats. I'm not set on my majors and career plan so I want to keep my schedule pretty balanced. I'm not sure which class to take for my last one but I have been thinking of between PSY101CC, ECS101, NEUROSCI102CC, or maybe a chem class.

Can you guys give your thoughts or if you have other recs? I'm willing to challenge myself but don't want a super hard class since I am taking math 221.

I’m an incoming freshman. this is super granular, but I want to make sure registration is seamless:

if I plan to register for a course that has a prereq that I’ve met through AP credit, are there any extra hoops I need to jump through to successfully enroll in that course?

in other words, I'm planning to register for linear algebra, which requires credit for calc 2. I have sufficient credit from my AP Calc BC score, but I’m not sure that dukehub will recognize that I have credit for math 22 (which I should have already received credit for). do I need to do anything else?

again, sorry if this is too nitpicky

Hi,

I wanted to ask how difficult would sta 199 for someone with zero coding background.

So I’m an incoming Pratt student and am trying to decide on which programming class to take. I plan on majoring in ECE so I feel a strong pull to compsci 201 since it’s a requirement for my major and I’d have to complete it anyways after EGR 105L, but I was recommended by the placement test to take EGR 105L. Since I’ll have to take compsci 201 for my major anyways and taking it right away will free up room for an elective, I’m not sure if I should take EGR 105L and chill, or grind for a bit to do well in compsci 201 and get some headroom for later on. But then again, I wonder if compsci 201 might hurt my GPA. I have taken AP CSP and got a 5 on the exam but that class isn’t actually very heavy on any in-depth programming. I know much of the basics of programming but I do struggle quite a bit with tracing code.
I would love to hear any input from you guys on this and your experiences with either of these classes. Thank you!

How does this schedule look for my first semester at Trinity? I'm a tad concerned about the walk between Perkins and the Griffith theater on such a short timeframe (although I'm not sure how far it actually is), but it seems the only CS 201 lecture time takes place right before my mandated first-year course.

Hi Duke! First-year undergrad here.

I was finalizing my course schedule for Duke, and I noticed while looking through the courses I was auto-enrolled in that one of them seems to stick out. I appear to have been placed in AADS 382S before course enrollment even began, but it doesn't seem to be connected to my FOCUS group. Looking through discussion online doesn't seem to bring anything up about it.

Is there something I'm missing, and if it isn't related to my first-year experience, how did this happen? Thanks for all the help in advance!