Fall Reflection Challenge

Calling All 2025 DukeEngage Participants!

DukeEngage has always been about transformational experiences—moments that shift your perspective, deepen your understanding, and open new possibilities. In these uncertain and often overwhelming times, we’re asking: Has something about your DukeEngage experience sparked new hope for the future?

 

The Challenge

The theme for the challenge this year is hope. As you wrap up your summer, we challenge you to reflect on the moments that lit that spark. What gave you hope—in a person, a place, a conversation, a small act of kindness or courage? And how might that sense of hope shape what comes next for you?

You can enter by yourself, with your DukeEngage group, or both!

Format

It’s up to you!

• Submit a 200-word pitch for an oral story (like the ones we heard at Convocation)
• Polish up a reflective essay
• Put together a photo essay
• Create an Ignite talk
• Or share any other original work (e.g., musical composition, poem)

Categories

What does your reflection touch on? You’ll select one or more when you submit:

• Courage and Adaptability
• Cultural Humility
• Gratitude
• Hope, Vision, Purpose

Prizes

• Best entry in each category — $200
• Best entry overall — $350 for you, and $350 for your partner organization!

Deadline

11:59 p.m. Eastern, September 1st (2025)

 

Submit essays, Photo essays, Ignite talks, or any other original work here, starting in June.

 

If you’re submitting a 200-word pitch for an oral story and your pitch is selected, you’ll work with Jeff Polish of Durham’s The Monti to polish (see what we did there?) your story over the next few weeks.

FAQs

• Can you enter even if you’re studying off campus this fall? Yes! If selected, we’ll help you share your work here.
• Can entries be group creations? Yes! (If a prize is awarded to a group, it will be divided evenly between entrants.) 
• Can you (or your group) submit more than one entry? Yes! Just complete the entry form multiple times.
• Can you enter as an individual AND with a group? Yes!

Need Inspiration?

If you’re studying on campus, participate in one of these storytelling adventures and earn an extra chance to win!

1. The Booth

“Hear your own wisdom, see your own insight, and uncover exactly that thing you never knew you knew” by participating in a rad experiment called the Booth.

Have you seen the Booth around campus? Each Booth houses a touchscreen kiosk, and when you move through the screens you’re prompted to pick and respond to a timeless and tough life question in a two-minute video. Your responses are recorded and sent directly to your inbox.

Epic, right? 

Your video is for you—it won’t be available to DukeEngage, your Program Director, or anyone else at Duke. But it could be a great springboard for your participation in the reflection contest—and we will get a list of netIDs for those who’ve participated, so you’ll score an entry into our random drawing. 

Sample prompts: 

• “Where are you most at home? Where can you be your fullest self?” could become “Where was I most at home during DukeEngage? Was I able to be my fullest self?”

•  “When did you break the mold, innovate, take a risk, change your mind? Tell a story about courage” …during DukeEngage.

• “What’s the two-minute version of your life story?”  => “What’s the two-minute version of your DukeEngage story?” 

2. The Workshops

Find the story that epitomizes your experience and think about how to tell it in a way that captivates people (even interviewers).

Sign up for a lunchtime storytelling workshop with local experts to talk about what makes a story sing, do some thinking about which moments in your DukeEngage experience best depict what insights you gained, and start to play around with ways to tell that story. 

Pick the one that works for you.

• 2025 Workshops TBA

Every Fall Reflection Challenge activity you participate in, including entering the contest and attending the Reunion, earns you an entry into a random drawing for cool prizes!

Helpful tips:

• On pitching an oral story. Our theme for the challenge is change: What changed for you during DukeEngage? (It’s not necessary to have your story fully fleshed out – submit a 200-word idea, and if your idea is selected, our celeb storytelling coach will work with you to develop it.)

• On what we mean by critical reflection and what makes a great reflective essay. Past examples here. 

• On how to curate an amazing photo essay (Up to 10 photos, in PowerPoint. Use the Notes field to include a caption for each photo. Captions should include the location, what is happening in the photo, and names and roles of identifiable people, as well as a one-paragraph reflection from you.) 

• On one way to create a photo essay—possibly as a group, with a great coach and the possibility of getting it published here at Duke 

• On how to create an Ignite talk (See FAQs. Audio and video are allowed, but see cautions.) Use PowerPoint, and use the Notes field for your script. Be sure to follow the Ignite formula of 20 slides, 15 seconds each, and run through your talk once for yourself, to make sure the timing will work if you’re selected! For a bit more guidance, see Create an awesome Ignite in 6 steps.  

Questions? dukeengage@duke.edu

The culmination: DukeEngage Fall Reunion!

 

Who: All DukeEngage students studying on campus in the fall; program leaders; and stakeholders

When: Friday, September 26, 5:00-8:00pm

Where: East Campus

Why: To showcase the array of work and transformative learning across all DukeEngage programs. To rekindle, celebrate, and cement new relationships. To mark and foster the transition from summer experience to ongoing experience, and DukeEngage’s role in your developing sense of purpose.

How: student storytellers from DukeEngage 2025 (you!?) take the stage…

a sampling of Reflection Contest entries are featured…

the winner of the random prize drawing is selected…

and you consume delicious picnic food with dear friends and mentors!

Watch your email for more!