Hey all! I need help deciding- I was accepted to Duke and it will cost around $25k a year for full attendance, Duke Kunshan which will also be like $25k a year, and Tulsa University with a full ride + $6k a year for my own use. A few considerations:
Duke pros: extremely recognizable, close-ish to home, programs/research opportunities, pretty campus, great food, weather, school spirit, opportunities for doing interdisciplinary studies
Duke cons: Expense, might be a competitive culture, campus is huge
Duke Kunshan pros: A Duke-affiliated school (I’ll get a Duke degree) in China and it’s a 20 min bullet train ride from Shanghai and Suzhou. The weekends are 3 days long and living in China is way cheaper then the US so I could travel a lot. Based on current student experience, I’d be fluent in mandarin by the end of 4 years. Very international and interesting student body - 30% of students are international from all over the world, and the 70% Chinese are also choosing to go to a school in their second language. Campus/buildings are brand new.
Duke Kunshan cons: most likely, a HUGE culture shock. 12 hour time zone difference from family, long flights (I’d only be able to go home summer and maybe winter break). There would be less focus on actual study of my major (more time to mandarin and adjusting to culture). Mandarin is really hard (I took a class in 9th grade – I at least have some exposure though). Very new university, not well established and many professors are just visiting/teaching for like 1-2 years. A lot of the professors are international, which could be really cool, but it might be harder to understand or connect with them. I’ve never been to China and it could end up being really mentally exhausting. No options for double majoring or minoring (You pick a general major and then get a concentration within the major).
University of Tulsa pros: The financial aid package is great haha, I’d net gain about $24-30k. It has been very personalized - even on my prospective student tour I got to meet individually with 3 different professors for like an hour each, one of which was the chair of the CS department and who said I could start working with his group on research this summer if I wanted to. He also mentioned the likely possibility of me getting paid to research, which is super unique esp in undergrad. Pretty small school and small class sizes. If I chose, I could double major in cs and Spanish and live abroad in Spain for a year doing classes and an internship in Spanish (so I’d become bilingual in English and Spanish). Seems really easy to get involved in interesting research and work directly with professors.
University of Tulsa cons: Relatively speaking it’s not super diverse, a majority of the students are from Oklahoma/Midwest. It likely won’t have the same pervasive academic interest/culture you’d get at somewhere like Duke or Duke Kunshan. Weather at Tulsa compared to Duke/DKU is worse (ice storms, h tornadoes, hot summers). Campus and food is ok, but compared to Duke/DKU it doesn’t really stand out. It’s far from my home but close to extended family. Doesn’t really have name recognition, strong school spirit/pride, or reputation like somewhere like Duke.
For context: I’m planning on majoring in Computer Science, but it’s not set in stone. I’ll probably go to graduate school and study a different field in grad school - I’m interested more in the applications of CS to fields like psychology, art, climate change action, healthcare, education, decreasing the digital divide, etc, or in something like AI policy making and regulation, so I want a technical background but I’m not super interested in just do CS/coding all day if that makes sense. I’d really like to double major or minor to get experience in interdisciplinary interaction.
My parents haven’t saved money for my college but they said if there is one place that I really want to go to, we can try to figure out how to do it without me going into crazy debt - I’d probably have to work during college and summers or take out some loans if I went to Duke or DKU though.
Sorry, this ended up being really long haha. Any thoughts are greatly appreciated, thank you!!!
