What You Need to Know

Dear student attending Duke Ellington next year:

Duke Ellington is a wonderful school of the arts. It however is very disorganized. When I came to the school I didn't know the organization would be that bad. Things almost never start or end on time like I was used to, I would always be 30 minutes early to everything. So since everyone is late it would end up that I was an hour early because the event would start 30 minutes late. It's not that bad but you don't ever get told if you are going to get out early until it happens. Expect any Ellington event to end extremely late.

Another thing I didn't expect was the amount of work. You have to stay after school a lot. Mainly, if you are in Instrumental Music, Theater, Dance, or Technical Design and Production (TDP), don't expect to get out early. On top of that, you have a bunch of homework from the academic side. They expect you to get it done on time no matter what you have going on. In all honesty, you can miss a few homework assignments every now and then if you are really stressed or tired. A lot of the teachers accept late work so you can do that. Some teachers don't accept it so then you should just do that work first. To conclude, try not to stress too much, just do the best you can and ask for help as much as you need.

Good luck!

Sincerely, Sabrina