Like our athletes we have a bad rep, but it's unwarranted

	The Walk-On Melissa Moriarty is a junior at Duke. She is studying Economics and Arabic. Melissa goes to every basketball game in Cameron and likes the Blue Devils chances of winning the national title this year.
	Melissa and friends do their best to dispel an ugly myth about Duke girls. Photo Courtesy of Melissa Moriarty

By Melissa Moriarty

During my three years at Duke, I've come to realize that people outside of the university aren't too fond of us. They say we're stuck-up, we think we are better than everyone else, we're ugly and we're all from New Jersey.

While some of that may be true, I'd like to say that I am a Duke girl, and I am neither ugly nor from New Jersey. No comment on the other slams.

Now, before you get your panties in a bunch, I'm not saying that we don't have our fair share of women who could stand to spend a little more time in front of the mirror or in the gym. There are days I walk by people on campus and wonder if they seriously think, this is the best I can look.

That said, Duke is a place of extremes. We work really hard and play really hard. The same dichotomy applies to the female population. We have the smoking hot girls and others who you'd hesitate to tell your friends about. There just aren't too many who fall in the middle.

Now, I know you are saying to yourself, I've watched some Duke games on TV, and I have yet to see those smoking hot girls that you speak of during basketball games. No argument here. Do you think those girls are waiting in the cold for 14 hours, so that they can be five feet away from J.J. Redick for two hours? Then again, I don't see any supermodels in the stands when I watch Maryland play in the Comcast Center.

Since we have the unique fortune of having a large public university right down the road from us, let's use North Carolina for comparison. Girls at Duke constantly hear from the men: "There are so many more hot girls at UNC." Hey, let's think about that for a minute. Duke has 6,107 undergrads. UNC has 16,278. I think even a UNC student could figure out that there is going to be a bit of disparity in the number of hot girls.

Let's face it: the women here are at Duke for a reason. They are very, very smart (or their parents donated enough cash to have a building named after them, but let's not go there). They aren't blow-drying, straightening, and expertly applying eyeliner before class each morning to get that MRS degree. They aren't trying to use their camera time at games in Cameron to get into Maxim or Playboy (no offense Jenn Sterger).

It is pretty tough to keep up with your highlights and manicures when you have an Orgo lab, Econ problem sets and a 30-plus page research paper due on a Wednesday. But we manage. There are plenty of women here who truly have it all: the looks, the brains, and the personality. Just consider yourself lucky when you meet one of us... and try not to be too intimidated.