When you first enter college, you are filled with anxious excitement. You’ll be meeting so many new people, exploring so many facets of life that you didn’t know existed, learning complex subjects, and expanding your world view. Most of us get to know about the things people do in college through movies and TV shows. But are colleges actually like how movies portray them to be? Not quite! Here are 9 things that movies mislead us about Collge. Read on to find out!
1. College is all About Fun
Well sure, you have a lot of fun in college because you are old enough to do things you couldn’t do in school but you don’t get to do whatever you want. In fact, colleges have stricter rules about what you can or can do (of course, nobody follows them). In college, instead of detention, you may get expelled for breaking those rules.
Also, did you forget that YOU NEED TO STUDY!? Yes, the moment you enter college you are overwhelmed with studies, projects, co-curricular activities, debates, quizzes, and innumerable other things that you don’t even have time to breathe. You’ll probably end up sleeping in the little time that you have left.
2. You can do anything you want in Hostels and Dormitories
It’s simple. You can’t. There are rules for everything in the hostel. You can’t come in at whatever time you want, you can’t bring in whoever you want, you can’t bring in whatever you want, you can’t play music too loud, you can’t dance around in your pj’s ( you could try to do that but you’ll need to explain to the hostel warden what you were trying to do, jumping in your jammies at 2 am in the morning). Chances are your warden will be alright with you dancing but you still can’t be making too much noise, mostly because others (*coughs* the class nerds) will be studying and they would put in a noise-complaint to the hostel authorities.
There are so many movies with guys and girls hanging out in the hostels all the time. But what really happens is that there are always two separate hostels that are miles apart and neither can enter each others hostels. There is always a guard near the gates (mostly the scary ones) that keeps an account of everyone entering the premises. Also, you can’t even bring in anyone you want into the campus. You’ll have to face the “third degree” from the guards first and if you do manage to get past that, chances are the visiting hours will be over before you can even do something.
3. Hostels are Better than your Home
Your parents definitely aren’t there to monitor everything you do, so you are a lot freer. But that also means that you have to do a lot more work. You’ll be doing your own laundry, you’ll be cleaning your own room, you’ll have to get your own food (hostel food isn’t all that great, you will end up eating a lot more junk food, so you need to stock that up), buy the things you need all by yourself (for that, first you need to figure out what you want). The point being, you’ll suddenly be thrust with so many responsibilities that you’ll end up whining to your parents about how much you miss them and how much more you appreciate them now.
The shift is usually hard, from having everything being done for you to doing it yourself. But hey, you need to grow up sometime. College is a great place to start. Everyone else is also as clueless as you are.
4. Your Roommate will be your Best Friend
If this does happen, you are probably the luckiest person in your dorm. You don’t get to pick your roommate, at least not in the first year of college. Most of the time, you’ll definitely have a difference of opinion with your ‘roomie’ and you will have to adjust or just deal with it, because fighting it out will just make it worse, you still need to live with them. It isn’t all that bad either, you’ll just be a couple of strangers put together in a room, at least for the first few weeks. After that, you get to know them better and learn to live with each other. But nobody usually hits it off the moment they meet. Also, if your roommate is someone completely different from you, good luck!
5. You can Go on Trips Anytime You Want
Again, you can’t. Most colleges have a requirement of at least 75% mandatory attendance. Feel free to miss classes but you’ll end up repeating the same year once more. And if you stay in the dorm, you’ll have to give reasons why you want to go out and how long you’ll be gone. And if the college admin sees that you’ll be gone for long, they’ll probably call your parents to ask why you will be missing classes. Also, you don’t have an unlimited reserve of money. You still don’t earn. Those foreign trips are just something movie stars can take. Besides, even if you are the lucky one who gets to go on trips very often, you’ll be worried about college while on the trip.
6. There are Always Groups and You Need to be a Part of One to Survive
Okay, yes there are always groups but you don’t necessarily need to be a part of one for you to have a good college experience. Even in the groups that you are in, you’ll probably be close to only a couple of people. In fact, with the number of things going on in college it is hard to keep up with everyone and you’ll just end up losing a lot of sleep. You can always hang out with your group all the time but eventually, you will need to make time for yourself. Social life in college is overrated anyway. It’s a scam. Not everybody is partying all the time.
7. College is Filled with Good-looking People Who are Always Dressed up Well
Sure, there are a lot of good-looking people in college, but only as many as there are anywhere else. And about dressing up? Only for the first month probably, After that, you would prefer to walk into college in your nightdress and hope that everyone is fine with it, and if they aren’t, you are too tired too care (remember you are doing a million things right now and looking good is presumably the last thing on your list). You’ll be worried about looking decent only in the first month because you are trying to make a nice impression. After that’s done, it’s time to be your true self. And that’s the best thing about college too…No uniforms! You can wear anything you want, oh wait, there is a dress code that needs to be followed. But hey, no uniforms. That’s good enough.
8. You can Bring Fancy Bikes and Cars to College
Even though colleges have no rules against this, you hardly ever find a parking spot, and navigating through that horrible traffic every morning is not the kind of start anybody wants to their day. And if you do bring a ‘fine’ car, you can’t possibly stay calm in class because you will be in constant worry of whether someone stole your car or not. There is also a chance of someone who isn’t particularly fond of you, doing something to it. And yeah, it’s India. There is no way you can ride a fancy car without getting stuck in a pothole or getting to college without being stopped by a cop.
And if you have an expensive car, you’ll have a lot of friends too (*coughs* not the kind you want) asking you to take them places they want to go. And in one day, you go from college student to a chauffeur, you’ll just end up running around for everyone else.
9. College Dorms are Huge
Most colleges have small (to be read as tiny, minuscule) dorm rooms. It’s a college, not a hotel. There are at least 500 more students that need a place to live apart from you. So obviously you’ll get a nanoscopic room that will barely fit all the things you have. And if you are sharing your room with someone else, then it will be very hard to walk around without bumping into each other all the time. If anything, the biggest dorm rooms are barely as big as prison cells. With that said, you can still invite all your friends over and check how many can fit in one room.
Despite all this, college is still going to be the best thing that will happen to you. You’ll have loads of fun, meet amazing new people, explore so many new things and learn lots of things too. After all, it not about what the college can give you, but what you can do in college that you can’t do anywhere else.