Despite being yelled at for trailing dirt into the house, I can’t resist bringing nature indoors. Nature is my element. When I run barefoot in the backyard or walk through the woods, I find my spirit. Nature has served as my haven to reflect and simply be. Even from a young age, I understood that the religious household in which I grew up did not always agree with my personality, which is often inquisitive and challenging. At the age...

Since childhood, I have struggled with speech and communication, so naturally, tutoring seemed like a foreign opportunity. I threw myself into it, and surely it has been my most rewarding yet exhausting experience. My definition of tutoring has evolved from overcoming personal fears to helping that 16-year-old girl who serves as the sole source of income in her family. Sure, tutoring taught me the very important values of adaptability, patience, and empathy, but more interestingly, tutoring developed a new passion...

The core of any undergraduate experience is academic. Duke’s specialized economics department will cultivate my understanding of microeconomic theory. Delving into behavioral economics, ECON620 on game theory applications and ECON327S on decision-making are courses I look forward to most. Through concentrating in behavioral decision sciences, discovery in the scientific decision-making of economics and psychology is possible. Another promising resource at Duke is the interdependence of undergraduate economics and Ph.D. departments. As a student highly interested in academia,...