What do you think of when you hear about college? Odds are, if you have seen movies like Animal House, Van Wilder, or Revenge of the Nerds, you picture massive house parties, Greek Life shenanigans, etc. Or, if you go down the sports side, you'll picture the entire student body rallying around one of the sports teams, like in We Are Marshall or Rudy.
One way or another, college is romanticized to be the absolute greatest years of our life.
The reality is, if you think that this depiction of those years is accurate, you are going to be in for a rude awakening. Sure, the opportunity to go to parties looms over most campuses, but so does the impending doom of a full course. With each hour of class time, professors generally suggest spending two hours outside of class studying or doing other work. Classes by themselves become a full-time job, and if you wanted to add a part-time job (because let's be real, college is expensive. You need whatever money you can get) to it, plus spending the necessary amount of time maintaining your well-being, well, let's just say parties move down the priorities list.
As far as sports go, that really depends on the school. If they have a perennial powerhouse, like the University of Alabama football team or the Duke University men's basketball team, then yes, those games will be a very big deal. However, for many other schools who play outside the Power Five, sports don't always seem that important. Even UMaine hockey struggles to get the students in at times (and shout out to the ones who go and stay the whole time) because the team hasn't been great. More people have better things to do than watch the hockey games, especially when the Black Bears are in a funk.
What can be expected as far as going to college goes? Well, as someone who is now on the outside looking in, I can tell that it is definitely not like the main points of the movies. For every raging party, there is the struggle of getting to an 8 am class after staying up late working on an assignment for a different class. For all of the Greek Life pranks, there is the desire to get involved with as many activities as possible without them consuming your entire life. Instead of going wild over your favorite team, there are midnight runs to the gas station to grab those two cans of Red Bull to keep you awake as you cram all your studying for the semester into one night.
I might be harping over the unrealistic parts of the movies, but there is one thing that they show that is actually accurate. The friendships that you build in college when you see a large group of graduates hugging each other and throwing their caps in the air, do exist. Those connections are the most realistic part of any movie, and they are the most memorable part of the actual experience.
Be wary of what the movies show. Don't forget to live out these next four years or so.
You have the power to make this next chapter of your life whatever you want it to be.
