Welcome to the Baldwin Scholar’s website! My name is Sophie Throsby and I ’m a rising sophmore at Duke, and incredibly privileged to be one of eighteen girls in the Baldwin program. I’m 19, and originally from Sydney, Australia, however my family currently resides in London, England. I grew up mostly in South East Asia (Hong Kong and Tokyo) but attended boarding school in Sydney from 6th grade until graduation. I am the eldest of six kids, (three boys and three girls), which means that the Throsby household is in a permanent state of organized chaos, but it does tend to make life interesting, to say the least.
I am planning to double major in Political Science and Religion, and hopefully receive the Policy, Media and Journalism Certificate, although of course this is subject to change numerous times before I declare! I’m interested in going into media journalism, or maybe politics itself. I could watch the news for hours on end (which sounds pretty lame now that I write it down!) and I feel really lucky that Duke is a place that has helped me to find interests I am deeply passionate about. On campus I am involved in tour guiding for the undergraduate admissions office, Dukes and Duchesses and am a proud member of Pi Beta Phi.
I couldn’t live without coffee and diet coke. I love sushi and any type of pasta. Sometimes I feel like I spend my whole life on an airplane, but if it means I get to have the best of three worlds- London, Sydney, and Duke – then I don’t mind so much! I love the water, and the beach and even though I’m a city girl through and through, the water keeps me sane. I love to dance, even though I’m pretty atrocious at it (or really atrocious if you ask any of the other Baldwins). I have a primal fear of heights, and so doing a 111 metre bunji jump last year was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.
This summer, I have been on a DukeEngage trip to Mbarara, Uganda. We’ll be home in about 3 weeks, but we’ve been focusing on maternal health and rainwater harvesting programs. It has been quite a summer, but I’m excited to get back to Duke and my Baldwin girls this coming August. If you have any questions, shoot me an email. In the meantime, good luck for your coming freshman year, I hope it is everything you imagined and more!