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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 material

by 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.
  - formerkrogemp 4y ago
    I felt that. I'm still trying to rebuild that sense of wonder and purpose I had before college. I usually find it most when not having to worry about money so much.
tssva 4y ago
That may have been your experience but don't expand it out to an Australia vs America thing. I'm from the US and the "Australian experience" describes my college and early 20s experience. Pre-gaming with friends, milking a few cheap drinks at bars, preferably going to a party where the drinks were either free or everyone threw a few $ in a hat to buy cheap kegs and then possibly back to someone's house for a drink or smoke to close out the night. Most people I have met since had similar experiences with the ratio of bar vs party changing depending upon the size of the city/town their school was located in. There are class differences and some level of class separation everywhere. It isn't a distinctly or even more more pronounced American trait. As for class differences in college my experience was that I made and have had enduring friendships with people from all different social classes that I made in college. Some of my friends from college came from extremely wealthy families, made for some great mostly free for me spring break trips, and some were working multiple jobs to get through school. Those working the multiple jobs and those from wealth were also friends. Are some wealthy people snobs and jerks? Yes, but I have also met just as many reverse-snobs and jerks. My experience is being a jerk is a distinct trait with no direct connection to your social class. I'm mentioning this only because you say elite college in your comment and I don't want to have someone say the experience is different for elite colleges. I went to a university which is consistently ranked by those publications which rank such things as being in the top 10 and in specific areas of study in the top 3 programs in the country. As for the original premise of whether college is needed to make life long friendships, I actually don't agree. I have life long friends from before, during and after college.

by 21723 4y ago

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.
- formerkrogemp 4y ago
  I felt that. I'm still trying to rebuild that sense of wonder and purpose I had before college. I usually find it most when not having to worry about money so much.

tssva 4y ago

That may have been your experience but don't expand it out to an Australia vs America thing. I'm from the US and the "Australian experience" describes my college and early 20s experience. Pre-gaming with friends, milking a few cheap drinks at bars, preferably going to a party where the drinks were either free or everyone threw a few $ in a hat to buy cheap kegs and then possibly back to someone's house for a drink or smoke to close out the night. Most people I have met since had similar experiences with the ratio of bar vs party changing depending upon the size of the city/town their school was located in. There are class differences and some level of class separation everywhere. It isn't a distinctly or even more more pronounced American trait. As for class differences in college my experience was that I made and have had enduring friendships with people from all different social classes that I made in college. Some of my friends from college came from extremely wealthy families, made for some great mostly free for me spring break trips, and some were working multiple jobs to get through school. Those working the multiple jobs and those from wealth were also friends. Are some wealthy people snobs and jerks? Yes, but I have also met just as many reverse-snobs and jerks. My experience is being a jerk is a distinct trait with no direct connection to your social class. I'm mentioning this only because you say elite college in your comment and I don't want to have someone say the experience is different for elite colleges. I went to a university which is consistently ranked by those publications which rank such things as being in the top 10 and in specific areas of study in the top 3 programs in the country. As for the original premise of whether college is needed to make life long friendships, I actually don't agree. I have life long friends from before, during and after college.