The College Bubble

You know when you're in high school and your teachers say, "When you're out in the real world, this isn't going to work" (this is presumably said after you screw up something major)? By the "real world" they mean that ambiguous grey area outside of your high school walls, they mean a time where your world doesn't revolve around Friday night football, or who's dating who.

They're talking about college, of course.

Now, a lot of this petty stuff does still remain in college. But now football games consume your Saturdays, relationships are serious and sometimes complicated, and the world is no longer an ambiguous grey area--instead it's a scary and terrifying reality that you'll be a part of all too soon.

But . . . and this is the part that kind of gets on my nerves: everyone talks about how college is the "real world", yet when you think about it, it's really not. While in college, you pretty much loafer. Sure, you might have a job, but it's a "college kid's" job--meaning it doesn't have any real responsibility and most likely it's fun and something you enjoy. During college, sure, you may pay the majority of your bills or even all of them (if you're "lucky") and you may live on your own and cook for yourself and make your own decisions and all that jazz, but it's not really the real world, is it?

Time is sort of suspended. You don't really have responsibilities (I'm generalizing here) other than to not flunk out. You're in class around fifteen hours a week versus working forty hours like you would if you were in the "real world" or being in class thirty-five like you were in . . . shudder. . . high school. Fifteen hours of required responsibility a week and that's it? That's definitely not what I would imagine the "real world" that everyone spoke of in hushed tones during high school to be like. 

And thus far, it's not. My experience thus far in college has been that while you're a student, you kind of exist in a bubble. 


For example, I spend the majority of my time on campus. The news I read is the campus newspaper. I work on campus. And I live three miles from campus. I go to school in Athens, which is THE definition of a college town (it is, you can't find a better example of a college town than Athens) and it's almost as if life here is stuck inside the college bubble as well. The college absolutely defines my--and everyone else in Athens--life. 

And this isn't a bad thing. I mean, we're in college, we're in our twenties, it should define our lives, I guess. But, it's definitely not the real world; it's a fragile bubble with an expiration date of four (possibly five) years. 

Unless you go on to grad school, of course. But I think that's probably a whole other can of worms.