Pop culture has taught our society many things, like how to style our hair, put together an outfit and even dance a certain way. Be it music, movies, or television, we indulge so much of it by continuously refreshing our Twitter feeds and opting to read the latest tabloid instead of The New York Times.
In addition to being a “learning source,” pop culture may also contribute to our ideas about stereotypes. What has pop culture taught us about college?
Drugs, sex and alcohol run awry on school campuses. Movies like “Van Wilder,” “Animal House” as well as many others have repeatedly painted the picture of stereotypical college life with too much emphasis on the partying.
This, however, is not true. Many people have preconceived notions of what the college experience is for all students thanks to the media.
When I first came to ASU — stigmatized to be one of the top partying schools in the nation — I realized it wasn’t as crazy as I thought. In an article from Phoenix New Times, student Chelsea Frank said the same thing. The school had not met her partying expectations.
"I came out here from New York expecting to walk into an Asher Roth music video, because ASU was supposed to be a renowned party school," Frank told New Times.
That song, “I Love College,” describes Roth’s own college experiences: “Drink my beer and smoke my weed/ But my good friends is all I need/ Pass out at three, wake up at 10, go out to eat, then do it again/ Man, I love college.”
It seems some students, like criminal justice junior Crosby Mays, do actually relate to these lyrics. Mays said that the song pertains to his life about half of the time, and admitted to partying three nights a week and drinking five nights a week.
“I believe that there are plenty of other aspects to college, but if you want to party, college is a great place to do it,” he added.
According to a report published in 2010 by the Core Institute, 65.7 percent of under-age college students said to have consumed alcohol within 30 days of which the study was conducted. Almost half of the students surveyed in the study reported binge drinking, while 16.9 percent of students reported using marijuana.
While the numbers are higher for those who reported to having drunk alcohol or smoked on an “annual prevalence,” these numbers are still alarming.
Along with that and what pop culture has taught us, it’s important to shed light on those who don’t fall under those harsh statistics.
“With all the classes I’ve taken, I’ve had to put in a lot of study time. Those movies are just there for everybody to laugh about. It’s not really a good example of college,” said interdisciplinary studies sophomore John Klemmetson.
Klemmetson is one of those students who don’t have time to party due to his studies and other commitments, such as his involvement in military training.
Despite the fact that there are many students like Klemmetson, many others have unfortunately been generalized and stereotyped to a party mentality, whether we partake in drugs and alcohol or not.
College is what you make it. Frank, Mays and Klemmetson all have had different experiences. Some students really do drink and do drugs on a nightly basis, while others tend to live in the library.
While those are the extremes, it seems that college experiences are vast and no single stereotype can sum up each student’s college experience. Take what you see in pop culture with a grain of salt.
Reach Ashley at alhaines@asu.edu
