Meet the Centennials
Between now and Duke's centennial, we'll see the strange new world we all inhabit through the eyes of the Class of 2024.
2024 was always going to be distinct for this class.
It was always going to be the class that graduated the year of Duke's centennial, yet these 1,593 students began their college career in 2020: the year of a massive movement for racial justice in the United States, an election marred by violence and misinformation, and a pandemic that altered society and made fraught any in-person interaction. The Class of 2024 navigates a Duke University that, in some aspects of campus life, those who graduated a mere two years agao would not recognize.
Their first semester at Duke was one without roommates, club sports, football games with fans, concerts—name it, and it was altered. They ate alone in their rooms and attended a mix of virtual and in-person courses in an accelerated semester, which some described as intense. Yet they also made friends and ran for student government and checked out campus restaurants (often in grab-and-go form) and played music. It was challenging and taxing and strange, but memorable and fulfilling—at least according to the four members of the Class of 2024 Duke Magazine will follow through their time at Duke: Bentley Choi, Matthew O'Stricker, Colin Kaeo, and Brianna Cellini.
Their generation is at the forefront of a complex, uncharted era. Between now and Duke's centennial, we'll see the strange new world we all inhabit through their eyes
