Divide and conquer: learn the popular myths
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Drama lovers would be disappointed, but universities have little in common with frat parties and mean deans portrayed in popular movies. However, we still expect these things to happen:
Your dean is your enemy.
Deans have always been on the dark side in the mass culture. They are usually presented as pretentious and arrogant and favoring the well-off only. It seems like a regular guy has no chance with a monster your head of the faculty is. According to the shows, plotting against students is their only job, which in the end logically pays in getting stained or drenched in sticky liquids. As the real life goes, deans are usually too busy to think of vengeance and are lucky to know your name only if you are studying at a real small college or you are too out of the ordinary to pass by without noticing. Either way, it is not a very common practice.
It’s all about the frat.
All the movies we could recall follow the similar pattern: guys get into college, guys are getting into fraternity. What we are used to see on screen is a couple of good boys trying to take down the bad league and become trendsetters themselves. They are in the fraternity one, and fraternity number two is what they dream of. In reality, many college students would actually laugh at you if you say it’s all about joining a brotherhood. They would rather be listening to music. Or creating their band. Or chilling in the dorm. It’s not the goal or some kind of achievement Hollywood tells us to pursue – fraternities are not a common thing nowadays and are rarely as entertaining as they make them.
You will have an enviable love life.
College movies are based on the concepts you will immediately fall in love once you get there. The reality is more disappointing. Nobody is going to fall for you as if by magic. You still have to date and work out your problems. Love life is not a prize that’s lying around the corner and waiting for you to pick it up. Plus, you don’t get a date if you are enrolled in one of the frats. It just doesn’t work that way. University is like any other type of social institute – you have to go through trial and error to finally find your true love. And nobody says it’s going to happen in college.
The finale will change everything.
When you think all is lost and you can’t find help anywhere, there is this big contest that is going to change the course of events. Suddenly, you take over your rivals and score the highest possible grade. Unfortunately, this has little to do with real life. In order to perform like you own it, you have to go through the never-ending preparation process and cram for you exams. In the movies, a goofy performance or an unexpected answer can save the day. If we are talking about actual tutors, they don’t care if you think your answer is funny – they want it to be correct, and that is, we must say, making the difference.
You are not going to study at all.
In the movies, it’s all about the boys and girls with impeccable abs, who are doing nothing but partying. Or, plotting against their rivals. We can assure you that embracing pants after two weeks in college is a regular thing. Yeah, we often see people swooshing over exaggerated, superhot apparel or a new car, but college is about knowledge, after all. And if you think of meeting some cool, sophisticated seniors along the way, just prepare you are going to bump into weird people with their drink drenching your dress at the parties. And that is the truth of it. Real boys and girls don’t have time to play all day long – they have more important tasks around.