#161. Undergrads (Saturday, August 3, 2013)

What was your best day…of being automatically included, even as an outsider?

One of the many ironic things about prestigious-in-name universities like Duke is that, on average, being an undergraduate student means a hell of a lot more than being a graduate student (or, at least a Master’s student).

Being a undergraduate student means you had to objectively stand out as the top ten percent—across every dimension of school, standardized testing, and extracurricular capability—among a pool of ambitious high school students whose life goal at that very point is time is effectively centered on getting into the best university possible. Being a Master’s student means that you couldn’t find an attractive job (or, in my case, any job) with your Bachelor’s degree, and so instead of making money, you’re willing to dump a truckload of cash hoping that a well-known name on your resume can land you something that many others like you have already gotten.

I exaggerate of course, but only by my taking my own example as absolute.¹ Because all around me, I saw evidence that the Duke undergraduates really were superior. My hardest class was that fourth-year real analysis class (#72); my resume was considered “uncompetitive” by a careers counselor compared to most of the undergraduate students; during my brief, misguided investment banking summer internship kick, I was told I had to work doubly hard (which I did not come close to doing) to get them to look at me over a rising junior or senior. At the Wall Street Five Rings (#74) trading competition that I was so proud for attending three weeks later, everybody else was an undergrad who’s already done some summer internship at another trading firm.

That inadequacy was reinforced by my relative unproductivity during the summer of 2013 in Durham. I had no job, no classes, and was just being a part-time research assistant for two professors. At the same time, with several of my classmates away on (mostly non-investment banking) internships of their own that summer, my social world had also compressed during those months.

But Edward Hao (#72), my fellow Ottawa native and neuroscience rising senior² and genuinely nice guy, was around doing research work this summer. And so we hung out a few times. Dinner at my place. Pizza at his place. Seeing Pacific Rim—awesome movie—with him and two of his friends at the Streets at Southpoint mall (#20). Seeing the much less awesome Wolverine with him and another group of his friends a few weeks after that.

On this Saturday, they’ve got a bigger event planned. I know because it starts with him, along with a pre-med guy Scott³ and another guy I don’t remember, picking me up from my apartment so we can go to the giant Chinese supermarket (located right next to the city’s prime Magic: The Gathering spot, Atomic Empire) to gather ingredients for a massive cookout that night.

My memory of the details of most of this unquestionably very vivid and socially active day, inexplicably, very blurry. I don’t remember the names and gender mix of the three to five additional people who join us—except one was this girl Edward really liked (whose name I also forget). I don’t remember what we do for fun during the window between arriving at Edward’s place and meal prep. I don’t know what actual meals we prepared, except we prepared several, they were fairly hard to make, and I didn’t really contribute to any of it. The only meaningful job I recall was crushing these bags of shelled peanuts to become a more granular peanut sauce—a job I accomplished amazingly well (by the account of several of them upon eating) by endlessly grinding them against the foot of a chair.

From the food consumption part, all I remember was all of us being stuffed to an unable-to-walk level upon finishing it. And I do remember us playing board games after that, but for the life of me I cannot remember which games we played (despite them being fun)—blasphemy for a board game nerd like me.

But the part I definitely remember was how unexpectedly friendly all of Edward’s friends were. Treating me, this socially-awkward outsider two years outside of their cohort, as one of them right away—with many of them engaging with interest with the aspects of my (perceived to be inferior) graduate student life. (In hindsight, my previous impression of undergraduate students as aloof and socially aggressive had been unfairly skewed by encountering most of them in high-stakes real analysis and investment banking information session settings.) The sheer naturalness, yet uncanniness, of all this instant collegial food-making and board game-playing might actually be the main reason so many of the specifics don’t survive in my memory.

By pure objective metrics of success (relative to age), I was not at the same level as most of these students two years younger—including Edward⁴. But, for one night, that didn’t stop me from reaching upward—by my own perception—and becoming one of them.

And for the sake of accuracy, a Master’s degree at a good school (and even getting into the program) is difficult and requires a skillset that many successful undergraduates don’t have. And it does open many new doors—like the job I ended up getting after—that wouldn’t otherwise exist. But clearly I’m trying to make a point in this story.
Who I’d met at a mutual family friend-of-a-friend’s Chinese barbecue in Cary near the start of the year (#72), and I’d met for lunch and dinner a few times during the year.
I only remember Scott, because: (1) he was the only non-Chinese person at this party; (2) I entered the car while he was in the middle of explaining some intense cancer cell research he was doing; and (3) we played his team in flag football in the fall, in a game where I somehow make not one but two interceptions (see #26 for my normal skill level)—I don’t believe on him, though.
Who ended up coming back to Canada after Duke to do his medical school at the University of Toronto.