Is it a fatiguing studypalooza? A Tucker Max-esque macrocosm? Or is it plain underwhelming?
Apparently, it’s College — and I heard some people love it. It’s also All Of The Above, if you survey enough experts. How do I know this? Because everyone except myself told me so.
Prior to move-in day, a, uh, diverse host of sources attempted to dictate the purple identity to a naturally guileless prospie. The Princeton Review informed me that Northwestern was an academic oasis brimming with extracurricular junkies feeding Day One resumé fodder. College Confidential apprised me that the sleep-deprived student body is eternally calculating how AP credits apply to distribution requirements. College Prowler assured me that, yes, the Chicagoland region is seemingly eternally frigid, and this breakthrough wisdom equates to a D+ on their senseless scale. And CollegeACB cordially reminded me that certain fraternity executives wield “floppy penises.” Not to perpetuate baseless drivel or anything.
Concurrently, popular culture was emitting a deafening roar of campus exorbitance. On timeless classic “Whatever You Like,” T.I. boasted of a superior fellatio standard due to intellectual rampancy (“Brain so good could’ve sworn she went to college”). Harold and Kumar oversimplified the ease of recreational substance consumption in dormitory stairwells. Asher Roth misleadingly contended that all pizza slices cost one dollar and all classmates carrying two X chromosomes are interminably undressed. Much to the chagrin of Chicago pie aficionados and pro-nudism Beiruteers, this is not the case in Evanston.
Yet these external influences didn’t necessarily amount to instant expectations. For the perceptive masses able to discern an extravagant music video from its real-life underpinnings, conjecture is an even thornier deed. Why? Well, when I know what something is not — say, a nonstop Deadmau5-backed dance orgy — I’m even less certain of what it is. If the preceding sentiment resembles a Descartes-related midterm prompt, then perhaps progress is being forged. For most of the summer, I exercised a healthy skepticism of the conventional college experience that prevented me from formulating concise expectations.
And yet that undeniably human impulse prevailed. I expected an aggregate product of everything the Princeton Review, College Confidential, College Prowler and CollegeACB claimed Northwestern was. In return, I received a bizarre mixture that both affirmed and refuted by expanding predictions. I still cannot adequately characterize the average Northwestern student — maybe she’s (let’s not neglect the 51:49 gender ratio) the most intelligent, dimwitted, introverted, outgoing, perpetually intoxicated and reliably sober youth I’ve ever encountered. Or maybe she’s the “beautiful girlfriend that treats you like crap,” according to the Princeton Review. Not to perpetuate baseless drivel or anything.