> When I was in University I didn't understand why some people didn't care about grades and partied so much. When we left school and got into the real world I u

> When I was in University I didn't understand why some people didn't care about grades and partied so much. When we left school and got into the real world I understood why: they had rich parents with contacts that could get them good jobs or seed capital for their own businesses. I'm not from the US, so I obviously can't tell if the same is true there (and I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't, given the sheer cost of tuition): here, there's a strong push for most people to go to university straight out of high school because that's what's done if you're at least averagely smart as you need to to get a well-paid job (or so the story goes, regardless of its truthfulness). At the same time, many people don't really know what they want to do (and degrees here lack the breadth of those in the US), so they end up dicking around a lot, going out partying, because they have no real focus. They don't care about their grades—they don't even care about university—it's purely a means to an end (i.e., getting a decently paid job), and when that end is more than a couple of years away while you simultaneously get your first taste of freedom as an adult, it's hard to care about effects that are years away.