DURHAM, NC—Ashwin Patel (Trinity ‘25) had already been pushed off the fourth C1 bus in a row and was on the brink of tears about missing his Biological Warfare class when suddenly, he was distracted by a notification from Duke Student Affairs titled “URGENT.” He quickly tried to open the email but was delayed by the Duo Push system, which refused to send his codes for a solid 98 seconds. Finally, Patel opened the email, which would cause his mental stability to plummet for the next three days. An excerpt of the email is attached below:
“Dear Mr. Patel. Sorry we didn’t tell you but all international students were required to check in at our office between 9:42 to 10:08 am this morning. You failed to report and will be sent back to where you came from.”
Inspired by the empathetic nature of the email, Patel sprinted from West to East campus in the hope that she would be allowed to remain at Duke by verifying her arrival. He arrived at Student Affairs within 30 minutes of receiving the email to confirm that he was in fact at the University, but was told: “Since you’re late, we don’t believe you..”
Due to the extremely efficient Student Affairs system, Patel was told “that’s tuff bro but you're being deported” and was put on a plane back to India by 5 p.m. that day. Unfortunately for Duke Student Affairs, it turned out that deporting Patel was not the best response to her not knowing about an appointment. The University is currently trying to contact Patel, but it appears that his phone may be on airplane mode. When asked to comment, President Price announced: “We’ve really been trying to improve how we handle situations like this. Everyone makes mistakes!”
