- My name's Duncan Parsons
and I'm from Auckland, New Zealand.
- My name's Georgia Lala.
I'm originally from Auckland, New Zealand.
- I study math and economics.
- I'm probably majoring in public policy
and minoring in Arabic.
I'm a freshman.
- And I'm a sophomore.
I'm studying here
at Duke University. - At Duke University.
(upbeat music)
- I'm an early riser.
So I wake up around 5:30 in the morning,
and I'll do a couple of hours work,
and then go to the gym,
and then usually I'll have classes
from about twelve til five in the day.
And after that is usually clubs
and extracurricular activities.
I'll get dinner with some friends.
And the extracurricular activities
usually go til nine or ten at night.
And then it's, after that there's studying,
and then you repeat.
(upbeat music)
- My day will typically start here
on central campus where I live.
And I'll get up and usually go for a run
around east campus,
have a shower.
I'll maybe cook some eggs or that type of thing.
Then head across the west,
and I'll walk through the gardens to do that.
So I'll show you that in a minute.
(upbeat music)
- [Interviewer] And so you're a Robertson Scholar?
- Yep.
- Explain what the Robertson Scholarship is.
- Robertson Scholarship basically,
it's a fully ride scholarship to Duke
or UNC, University of North Carolina of Chapel Hill.
And basically it means that
you're a student of both schools,
although you do have a home institution,
so for me that's Duke.
And it was started by Julian Robertson.
So he's a benefactor and he went to UNC,
and he had one son that went to Duke
and one son that went to UNC.
And he realized that the two schools
compliment each other extremely well.
They share some things like basketball
and the fact they're both great schools.
But they're different in the sense that,
for instance, Duke is a small private school
and UNC is a large public school.
And so creating the scholarship
his hope, amongst other things,
was that the students that come on the scholarship
get to see both sides of the coin.
And I've really found that
to be a really incredible experience.
(upbeat music)
- What are your thoughts on UNC?
(laughs) What's your reaction to UNC?
- I'm torn because I'm a Robertson Scholar,
which means that I have half my allegiance
is technically at UNC, but--
- So they're your rivals,
but then you're gonna take courses there next year.
- Yeah. (laughs) - So, difficult, you're torn.
- I'm torn, I'm torn.
But, I'm a Duke student at heart.
- Duke student at heart? - Yeah.
(upbeat music)
- So, where are we right now? (organ music)
So this is the Duke chapel.
It's one of the most iconic parts of Duke University.
There's frequent services here,
we hold memorials here,
and then, obviously, people play organs--
- Play the organs sometimes. - Yeah. (laughs)
- So first time that I saw Duke chapel
I was catching the bus that goes up Campus Drive,
and you can the chapel rising up in the background
as we're coming in.
And I remember freaking out a bit when I saw it
because it's one of the things that--
- Oh my god, right.
- Come up on the post cards of Duke
and it's one of the main iconic pictures of Duke,
and seeing it in person was a really cool experience.
- Sort of like a, oh my god, I'm actually--
- Yeah, it was the realization that
I was studying in America
and that I was studying at Duke.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- Cool, well let's uh...
(Instrumental music)
- We're at the tennis courts at the moment.
Duke women's tennis are playing Pittsburgh.
And this is one part of the athletics facility,
and you can see over there is the football stadium
that was just recently completed,
the last part of it.
And the athletics is over the back,
we'll check that out in a moment.
So yeah, this is just a classic,
I guess, weekend at Duke.
There's always some kind of sport event on.
So, it's Saturday at the moment, so...
It's good viewing, you know,
good entertainment, huh?
- [Interviewer] Go Dukes.
- Now we're at track and field
and Duke are playing I think men's and women's
track and field against North Carolina UNC at the moment.
- So, you got in to Harvard and Stanford,
but you decided on Duke?
Why was that?
- There was a number of reasons.
One, I'm on a scholarship here,
which is a pretty big draw.
And another thing I really liked,
and it's grown on me more and more
as I've spent more time here,
is just the dynamic between sport and academia,
and just the culture of the people.
(upbeat music)
- What's been your favorite course so far?
- Last semester I did a public policy seminar
on 9/11 and it's aftermath.
And it was a seminar with 12 people in it,
you took no notes the whole time,
it was an hour and a half of just discussing topics.
And it was very interesting to hear from,
as an international student,
how American's brought up in this current political climate
view terrorism and view
the impacts of things like 9/11.
- Favorite class is probably the one I'm in at the moment.
It's a PPE class, politics, philosophy, economics.
And it's basically like an integration of the three fields,
and it runs through a lot of the primary writings about it,
so like human law by Hobbes.
Like, you're dealing with things like
the arguments for private property and why it exists,
and why we need to state.
It's like game theory prisoner's dilemma type stuff.
And it's talking about the foundational things
of our modern society.
And I think it's just been really interesting
to kind of understand that.
(upbeat music)
- So what advice would you give
to a high school student from New Zealand
applying to school out here?
- Make sure that your years of high school
are doing things that you're enjoying.
I mean, you can put yourself through the paces
to do the hard stuff, I think that's important,
but you really wanna
find out things you're passionate about
and you really love doing
and just get good at them.
And that'll show that you have dedication to some causes,
that you can really apply yourself.
And it basically tells schools over here
that you're someone that they wanna have,
and that will do incredible things,
and basically that you deserve the opportunity
to have access to all the things
that they have at these schools.
And if it means that if you can pursue things
that you enjoy doing,
and that's what they're looking for,
you're gonna have an incredible time
being incredibly successful at high school.
And that's just gonna really run through
directly into your university experience,
And you're just continue to love it.
- Don't be afraid of trying for things,
like I never thought that
I would be able to come to the states to study.
And keep an eye out for the opportunities
as they present themselves,
so scholarships and grants that are available,
just keep one ear to the ground and listen for those
because they can really open up
some amazing opportunities for you
if you actively seek them out.
(upbeat music)
- If you like video and you wanna learn more
about other student's experiences
at schools in the states and other places,
be sure to subscribe to the channel.