Parties, keggers, ragers! The three words most kids associate with college. Prior to coming to college, I, along with the rest of us misinformed youth, had a specific perception of what college life was like, thanks to movies, TV and other forms of entertainment.

How can one forget John Belushi as the seventh-year repeat offender Bluto in the most classic college movie of all time, “Animal House,” or Elle Woods and her easy acceptance into Harvard Law in “Legally Blonde?” Through classic movies like “Old School” to more recent movies like “The House Bunny” and “Accepted,” the perception of college has been molded to a certain stereotype we all expected would be true when we arrived.

Even though the rampant Greek life and assurance of parties are fairly the same, especially here at the University, there are a lot of things that aren’t true.

Students like Kevin D’Souza, freshman in Engineering, thought we would be partying in dorms.

“For some reason I thought college was going to be exactly like the movie ‘Accepted.’ But obviously it is slightly different, considering ‘Accepted’ was about students creating their own university,” D’Souza joked.

The one thing college movies get right is the party aspect of school, especially for a school like ours that boasts a huge Greek life and notorious weekends like Unofficial. But the lifestyle here that closely resembles what we see on the big screen can’t be found at all colleges, like DePaul for example.

The misconceptions college movies send off make all of us enter school thinking that college is going to be all play and no work.

When we get here though, we are for sure in for a rude awakening.

Bluto in “Animal House” has a 0.0 GPA, and Van Wilder continuously fails so he can keep up his partying ways. Watching it all makes us think that college is a breeze and grades don’t matter, but in reality, grades do matter. Shocker.

Sidra Ismail, freshman in Media, thought college was going to be one big never-ending party.

“‘The House Bunny’ reminds me of college, so I thought college would be a lot like that — drinking, partying and being friends with everyone,” she said.

When asked whether she thought the movie was an accurate depiction of college life, Ismail said yes, she did think it was accurate.

However, she mentioned that they completely leave out the academic aspect.

There are college movies out there that don’t focus strictly on partying. Movies like “Good Will Hunting,” “The Social Network” and “21” are some examples. But movies like these aren’t the first things that come to mind when kids think of what college is going to be like.

There isn’t a single college movie out there that accurately portrays the balance of the social life and academic life of a college campus. Prior to coming to college, everyone focuses so much on partying that we forget that we come to college in order to channel our ambitions and dive into higher education to help us attain jobs we are truly passionate about.

Thanks to entertainment, the stereotypes and misconceptions of college will never end. “In Old School,” the characters of Luke Wilson, Will Ferrell and Vince Vaughn relive their college days, embracing Wiz Kahlifa’s now popular notion of living “young, wild and free.” I guess that stereotype and misconception is the greatest of all when thinking about college. But it could be argued that misconceptions and stereotypes like that are not necessarily wrong or bad.

All college movies have the underlying themes of students discovering who they are, making life long friends and preparing themselves for the real world. Living young, wild and free is a notion that is embraced in college because this is our last hoorah before entering the real world. We are here to learn but we are also here to grow. College movies will continue to shape the expectations of all future generations, and although the minor details will be wrong, the greater notion of it being a unique experience in itself will never change.

_Saher is a freshman in Media. _