10 Biggest Lies About College Movies and TV Need to Stop Telling
Hollywood is definitely notorious for giving us false expectations. Thanks to certain movies and TV shows, we grew up with some crazy relationship goals, unrealistic hopes for high school, and a misunderstanding of what college life would actually entail. It’s not our fault, of course! When shows like Gilmore Girls and Gossip Girl are so relatable it’s hard to see the lies that we’re being fed until we’ve stepped foot inside our own dorm rooms on our own campuses. So what should you expect when you set foot on campus for the first time? Here are 10 things that movies and TV definitely got wrong about college life, from coffee carts to spring break.
GIF: Courtesy of GIPHY1/10Dorm room decor.
Remember when Rory Gilmore had literally an entire apartment’s worth of furniture inside her freshman year dorm? And when Elle Woods could fit a treadmill inside her dorm at Harvard? And let’s not even get started on Gossip Girl. Most of us could barely fit our oversized tupperware full of sweatshirts and yoga pants, let alone a piece of exercise equipment. We’re lucky if our dorm rooms stayed clean enough to pass a health inspection, so we’re pretty sure that no one’s dorm really looked like the inside of a Pottery Barn catalog IRL.
GIF: Courtesy of GIPHY2/10The campus food.
College food is arguably way better than high school food — we’ll give it that. The endless possibilities inside the dining hall certainly made us excited for dinner time (although, let’s be honest, weekend brunches were definitely the best). That said, college food is still not 5-star restaurant quality like Hollywood would make us believe. And we’re still looking for that quaint European café cart that Yale supposedly has on its campus.
GIF: Courtesy of GIPHY3/10The contents of your wallet.
K, where do college students get the money to do half the things that they do in movies or on TV shows? We could barely scrape together enough coins to do laundry every two weeks, so we’re not sure how these fictional students manage to go on road trips every year. (Gas isn't cheap, you guys.) Which brings us to this:
GIF: Courtesy of GIPHY4/10Everyone from campus does not go to the same place for spring break.
Moves like 21 Jump Street or Spring Breakers would lead us to believe that when spring break rolls around, every student on campus piles onto a plane that will take them to the same location. Like, you’d basically be dancing on a beach with your entire Psych 101 class in the middle of Cancun. In actuality, many people go home for spring break (with a huge bag of laundry).
GIF: Courtesy of GIPHY5/10The entire dating scene.
Raise your hand if you were fed this lie as a teenager: “College guys are different than high school guys.” (Thanks, Cher Horowitz.) Thanks to movies, we imagined that the people we’d date in college would be much more intellectual and sophisticated than the awkward high school relationships that we had. But, let’s be honest: a lot of college relationships are also pretty awkward. Or, if you went to a small school, there’s just a whole lot of cyclical dating within the same friend group.
GIF: Courtesy of GIPHY6/10The campus bathrooms.
Let’s just agree: college bathrooms are pretty gross. And most are definitely not co-ed. Shows like Boy Meets World would have us believe that boys and girls shared the same bathroom, and that they were always impeccably clean. LOL. No. Also, pretty sure no one ever had a spontaneous (and perfectly harmonized) duet with a classmate in the shower, à la Pitch Perfect.
GIF: Courtesy of GIPHY7/10College parties.
According to pop culture, college parties are always perfectly decorated with neon signs, ‘gram-worthy string lights, and music is provided by a professional DJ. The reality? A whole bunch of your hallmates crammed into one sweaty dorm while one person shuffles through an iTunes playlist.
GIF: Courtesy of GIPHY8/10The amount of free time that actually exists.
In movies, college students seem to spend a tiny fraction of their time in class and even less time studying. (And when they are seen studying, it’s definitely portrayed in a 30-second montage). Between classes, extracurricular activities, and sports, the average student definitely does not have a ton of time to lounge around in their dorm (that’s not decorated to perfection) and do nothing.
GIF: Courtesy of GIPHY9/10Class participation.
Movies love to depict all college classes as huge seminars filled with 100+ students on their laptops. And there are definitely classes out there that are like this. But there are also smaller courses that are structured as roundtable discussions, or classes that are completely non-traditional. It’s actually a lot harder to get lost in the crowd in a college class than Hollywood would make you think!
GIF: Courtesy of GIPHY10/10How sophisticated you'll actually feel.
Here’s a secret that all college students know: you don’t feel any more grown up as a senior than you did as a freshman. In fact, you’ll always kind of feel like you’re 12 years old, no matter what happens, and no matter what you experience. And that’s totally okay.
