7 ms·

Just going to college isn't enough. This only happens for the right people going to the right college under the right circumstances. I went to college and live

Just going to college isn't enough. This only happens for the right people going to the right college under the right circumstances. I went to college and lived there. I was far enough away from home that I could not return home with any frequency. I was a nerd at a college full of nerds and other like-minded people. I intentionally put more effort into making friends by participating in various clubs, social groups, and activities. I put more effort into that than I did into my studies. I did just enough schoolwork to graduate. Indeed, I did form lifelong friends during this time. Now compare that to the story of another person I know. They went to community college while still living at home. After a year or two of that, they did leave home to go to college. However, they were at a state school with people studying various things and having various interests. There was not a group of like-minded people there. Lots of the students there were commuters and not living in dorms. This person focused on their studies, not on socializing. This person's social group today is largely still comprised of their friends from high school. This scenario that OP describes happened for me, and presumably for OP as well. It doesn't happen for all, or even most, people attending college. It only happens for the right people who attend the right college in exactly the right circumstances.

aiyen 4y ago
There’s a lot of different scenarios for sure. Take someone who goes to college and work a full time job. They won’t have much time for building and sustaining friendships.
ceeplusplus 4y ago
Yeah, not only do you have to go to college but you need to have money to go out if you want to keep friends. Freshmen don't have much money so you can kind of skate by going to fast food places but once people turn 21 and start going out to bars and nice things you quickly see whose parents have money to fund their social lives. I couldn't afford to pay $50-100 on a bar tab every weekend.
- ido 4y ago
  I don’t know where you live where a bar tab would be $50-100. I went to two universities (one in Israel and the other in Austria, neither particularly cheap countries) and cheap student bars had beers for €3-5. Might be a bit more today but not much.
  - brailsafe 4y ago
    Beer is notoriously inexpensive in a fair number of european countries. When I first visited from Canada, I was shocked at how much beer I could get in Germany for $5 euro or something
    - ido 4y ago
      Israel is a lot more expensive (alcohol very highly taxed) but we knew the cheap student pub in a basement where you could get good deals on the cheapest beer pitchers to share around the table. Even if the beer was $8 per unit I wouldn't rack a $50-100 tab every weekend as a poor student.
    - OJFord 4y ago
      And to Europeans, the price of our beer (especially in major cities) is also often shocking. They wanted $5 for a pint! ;)
  - rayiner 4y ago
    For $5 you could get well drinks in Chicago on a weeknight. (The $50-100 bar tab came from drinking 10 of them...)
  - Broken_Hippo 4y ago
    I live in Norway. A beer costs around 85-90nok (around $9.50USD or 9.02€). It would be really easy to spend $50. That's 5 beers, and I'm not entirely certain that the student houses are really that cheap here. [1] Folks counter this by pre-drinking at home and then going home to continue drinking. It really wouldn't be that difficult in the US either, and some folks would certainly leave you behind if you can't keep up financially. Fun fact: Austria is cheap in comparison, at about 2,50€ to 3,50€ per beer, and it seems like a comparative deal. [2] [1]https://norwaytoday.info/travel/is-beer-in-norway-really-that-expensive/#:~:text=But%20let's%20get%20back%20to,GBP%207.7%2C%20and%20USD%2010.48 https://norwaytoday.info/travel/is-beer-in-norway-really-tha.... [2]https://www.flatio.com/blog/typical-prices-of-goods-in-austria#:~:text=Austria%20prices%20%E2%80%93%20beer&text=500ml%20of%20local%20beer%20in,it's%20around%202%2C50%E2%82%AC https://www.flatio.com/blog/typical-prices-of-goods-in-austr....
- Gustomaximus 4y ago
  In Australia, maybe I hung out with the peasants but parties and pre-drinks was the normal thing as most of us were budget limited. Pre-drinks being drinks at a friends house. Sit around having cheap drinks bought at the bottle shop. Then head out to the bar/club and either dont drink or nurse a beer or 2 over the rest of the night. Pre-drinks were usually the most fun part of the evening anyway.
  - 21723 4y ago
    Australia and America are different in this regard. In the US, social life is optimized around making money. That's not because we're individually more materialistic than anyone else--I don't know if that's true--but because we have to think and operate that way to survive. Long before 21, genuine serendipity and mutual interest fall away and cynical "networking" takes over. I'd say the transition happens, on average, around sophomore year. Once people get their first experiences with the working world, they realize how much social class really matters and will do everything they can not to lose ground in the shuffle. The higher (or lower, since it's the middle class that has the longest period of class naivete) you go in social class, the earlier this transition happens. It's why you don't actually as many connections, if you don't come from wealth, at an elite college as people think you do. The legacy mediocrities (e.g., final club brats) and the middle-class smart kids who actually earned their way in don't mix. If you're going to make connections in the US, you have to do so before class/caste identity really hardens and they learn to see you as an enemy; that's in prep school.
    - robbiep 4y ago
      I mean, it probably helps that we don’t graduate with obscene student debts in Australia either
      - 21723 4y ago
        That too. The debts basically ensure that people have no choice but to "move where the jobs are" (which the reptilians tell us is a virtue) and work 65+ hours per week. Everything that took so long to build gets destroyed in a year or two and it doesn't come back. Eventually, people realize they were cattle being raised for slaughter, and that "the corporate ladder" isn't going to lead anywhere decent for them because they weren't born into the right connections for that, but by this time they've had all their energies wrung out of them and it seems to be too late.
- jefftk 4y ago
  Cost depends a lot on who you find and want to hang out with. I found a group of friends where we spent most of our social time hanging out at the dorm: playing German board games, making music, or just talking. I'm still friends with most of them fifteen years later.
- andrew_ 4y ago
  I personally went to way more house parties than I did bars. Perhaps the link you're trying to make is that some social ability, and mobility, is required.
jancsika 4y ago
> This scenario that OP describes happened for me, and presumably for OP as well. It doesn't happen for all, or even most, people attending college. It only happens for the right people who attend the right college in exactly the right circumstances. That's quite a number of college attendees (graduates?) standing on the shoulders of a single personal anecdote. I'd estimate an equal number received prank phone calls their Freshman year from inebriated idiots fascinated by the length of their Sri Lankan roomate's name as it appeared in the student directory. (Yes, a physical fucking student directory!)
pjmorris 4y ago
> They went to community college while still living at home. After a year or two of that, they did leave home to go to college. However, they were at a state school with people studying various things and having various interests. There was not a group of like-minded people there. Lots of the students there were commuters and not living in dorms. This person focused on their studies, not on socializing. This describes me (well, 3 years at CC, but close.) However, I also managed to find the nerds by getting a low-level job at the state school's computing services center, and they're still my friends 30+ years later. My read is that there are a lot of confounding variables here, but I'm inclined to think that college tends to makes it easier to build a friend network of upwardly mobile people (in the US in the last four+ decades.)

aiyen 4y ago

There’s a lot of different scenarios for sure. Take someone who goes to college and work a full time job. They won’t have much time for building and sustaining friendships.

ceeplusplus 4y ago

Yeah, not only do you have to go to college but you need to have money to go out if you want to keep friends. Freshmen don't have much money so you can kind of skate by going to fast food places but once people turn 21 and start going out to bars and nice things you quickly see whose parents have money to fund their social lives. I couldn't afford to pay $50-100 on a bar tab every weekend.

ido 4y ago
I don’t know where you live where a bar tab would be $50-100. I went to two universities (one in Israel and the other in Austria, neither particularly cheap countries) and cheap student bars had beers for €3-5. Might be a bit more today but not much.
- brailsafe 4y ago
  Beer is notoriously inexpensive in a fair number of european countries. When I first visited from Canada, I was shocked at how much beer I could get in Germany for $5 euro or something
  - ido 4y ago
    Israel is a lot more expensive (alcohol very highly taxed) but we knew the cheap student pub in a basement where you could get good deals on the cheapest beer pitchers to share around the table. Even if the beer was $8 per unit I wouldn't rack a $50-100 tab every weekend as a poor student.
  - OJFord 4y ago
    And to Europeans, the price of our beer (especially in major cities) is also often shocking. They wanted $5 for a pint! ;)
- rayiner 4y ago
  For $5 you could get well drinks in Chicago on a weeknight. (The $50-100 bar tab came from drinking 10 of them...)
- Broken_Hippo 4y ago
  I live in Norway. A beer costs around 85-90nok (around $9.50USD or 9.02€). It would be really easy to spend $50. That's 5 beers, and I'm not entirely certain that the student houses are really that cheap here. [1] Folks counter this by pre-drinking at home and then going home to continue drinking. It really wouldn't be that difficult in the US either, and some folks would certainly leave you behind if you can't keep up financially. Fun fact: Austria is cheap in comparison, at about 2,50€ to 3,50€ per beer, and it seems like a comparative deal. [2] [1]https://norwaytoday.info/travel/is-beer-in-norway-really-that-expensive/#:~:text=But%20let's%20get%20back%20to,GBP%207.7%2C%20and%20USD%2010.48 https://norwaytoday.info/travel/is-beer-in-norway-really-tha.... [2]https://www.flatio.com/blog/typical-prices-of-goods-in-austria#:~:text=Austria%20prices%20%E2%80%93%20beer&text=500ml%20of%20local%20beer%20in,it's%20around%202%2C50%E2%82%AC https://www.flatio.com/blog/typical-prices-of-goods-in-austr....
Gustomaximus 4y ago
In Australia, maybe I hung out with the peasants but parties and pre-drinks was the normal thing as most of us were budget limited. Pre-drinks being drinks at a friends house. Sit around having cheap drinks bought at the bottle shop. Then head out to the bar/club and either dont drink or nurse a beer or 2 over the rest of the night. Pre-drinks were usually the most fun part of the evening anyway.
- 21723 4y ago
  Australia and America are different in this regard. In the US, social life is optimized around making money. That's not because we're individually more materialistic than anyone else--I don't know if that's true--but because we have to think and operate that way to survive. Long before 21, genuine serendipity and mutual interest fall away and cynical "networking" takes over. I'd say the transition happens, on average, around sophomore year. Once people get their first experiences with the working world, they realize how much social class really matters and will do everything they can not to lose ground in the shuffle. The higher (or lower, since it's the middle class that has the longest period of class naivete) you go in social class, the earlier this transition happens. It's why you don't actually as many connections, if you don't come from wealth, at an elite college as people think you do. The legacy mediocrities (e.g., final club brats) and the middle-class smart kids who actually earned their way in don't mix. If you're going to make connections in the US, you have to do so before class/caste identity really hardens and they learn to see you as an enemy; that's in prep school.
  - robbiep 4y ago
    I mean, it probably helps that we don’t graduate with obscene student debts in Australia either
    - 21723 4y ago
      That too. The debts basically ensure that people have no choice but to "move where the jobs are" (which the reptilians tell us is a virtue) and work 65+ hours per week. Everything that took so long to build gets destroyed in a year or two and it doesn't come back. Eventually, people realize they were cattle being raised for slaughter, and that "the corporate ladder" isn't going to lead anywhere decent for them because they weren't born into the right connections for that, but by this time they've had all their energies wrung out of them and it seems to be too late.
jefftk 4y ago
Cost depends a lot on who you find and want to hang out with. I found a group of friends where we spent most of our social time hanging out at the dorm: playing German board games, making music, or just talking. I'm still friends with most of them fifteen years later.
andrew_ 4y ago
I personally went to way more house parties than I did bars. Perhaps the link you're trying to make is that some social ability, and mobility, is required.

jancsika 4y ago

> This scenario that OP describes happened for me, and presumably for OP as well. It doesn't happen for all, or even most, people attending college. It only happens for the right people who attend the right college in exactly the right circumstances. That's quite a number of college attendees (graduates?) standing on the shoulders of a single personal anecdote. I'd estimate an equal number received prank phone calls their Freshman year from inebriated idiots fascinated by the length of their Sri Lankan roomate's name as it appeared in the student directory. (Yes, a physical fucking student directory!)

pjmorris 4y ago

> They went to community college while still living at home. After a year or two of that, they did leave home to go to college. However, they were at a state school with people studying various things and having various interests. There was not a group of like-minded people there. Lots of the students there were commuters and not living in dorms. This person focused on their studies, not on socializing. This describes me (well, 3 years at CC, but close.) However, I also managed to find the nerds by getting a low-level job at the state school's computing services center, and they're still my friends 30+ years later. My read is that there are a lot of confounding variables here, but I'm inclined to think that college tends to makes it easier to build a friend network of upwardly mobile people (in the US in the last four+ decades.)