The Strength of Domestic Programs
Posted by Andrew Ognibene on 2009-07-08
one comment
In honor of the recent holiday weekend, I've decided to address a question that comes up every time myself or a fellow Engager here explains the nature of DukeEngage. Namely, why go to New Orleans (or any domestic location, for that matter) when Melinda Gates will send us to Ireland, China, Honduras, Tanzania, or literally any other place on the map? Isn't staying within the national borders just wasting a great opportunity?
If you couldn't guess, my answer is an emphatic "no." Here's why:
1. Skills as a Duke student are better utilized and better understood within the United States. The domestic job sites/internships have a firmer idea as to the value of a Duke education, and will be more likely to trust you with challenging and valuable material. I've heard horror stories of people who went abroad last summer with Engage and really couldn't point to a single thing they'd contributed. The situation is far less likely to occur here, where you know they've at least heard Dickie V talk about those "Cameron Crazies with 1500s on their SATs, baby!" Domestic programs also have the added value of "networking" for a future job or internship. Our program coordinator told our group that a number of last year's crew focused, or plans to focus, their job search in New Orleans.
2."National culture shock." This is obvious, but important. Believe it or not, America has culture, too! It can be just as shocking as any other culture. Here, New Orleans has its own music, language, food, transportation, history, politics, and clock, which seems to run about half an hour behind everyone else in Central Time. To be even-handed, the other domestic cities have similar unique features: Portland's music and environmentalism, Seattle's coffee and rain (sorry), St. Louis' barbeque and dynamic history, and Durham's great basketball team and University (You may have heard of it).
3. Domestic programs stay truer to the idea of DukeEngage. In my opinion, at least. I had this conversation with my friend who went to Belize last summer, who kept implying that civic engagement is somehow amplified by serving abroad. Yet DukeEngage's slogan is "Change yourself. Change your world." I asked him which one has the greater impact: changing the way you perceive the area around you, or changing the way you perceive a faraway location? To me, when you serve in an exotic or distant place, you run the risk of compartmentalizing the lessons you learn, and return home without translating anything back to daily life. It's much harder to ignore or drown out when the sound's coming from just down the street. In my opinion, domestic programs put you in a prime position to best follow through on core principles of the Gates' fantastic program.
And if that isn't enough, just know that we celebrated the Fourth of July the way it was meant to be- in glorious, god-fearing, sea-to-shining-sea America.
