By Jordan Mason
Guest Writer

“It’s not like it is in the movies.” This expression has become all too common throughout our society, including the academic collegiate experience and the institutions associated. While watching films about the American colleges and universities, an illusory idea of a well-managed institution enabling the minds of the future for success exists. But is this really the case?

In the fantasy world of films and Hollywood, college students are portrayed as well dressed, polite, and sophisticated individuals. Scenes from classrooms in the movies show students engaged in their courses by questioning, reasoning, and debating the topics at hand. In libraries and study halls, the cliché librarian is on the prowl to hush students to provide a serene, quite environment for all to study in.

The reality is however, something quite the opposite of the movies. Colleges and universities are filled with what has become a stereotype for Americans at large; loud, obnoxious, rude, and generally apathetic individuals to those around them and their environment. As I attempt to find quite study areas on the college campus today, I find it a troubling task at hand. The library in the afternoons and evenings are filled with either the noisy commotion of a gregarious group in one corner, the thoughtless individual bantering into a cellphone in another, or even the audacious individual blaring a video on his laptop speakers in the middle of it all. But aside from my efforts to obtain a tranquil study area, the classrooms themselves are not what the hype would have you believe. Instead of the bustling noises of students jotting down notes, the clicks of cellphone pads pounding out text messages and whispers about social gossip resoundingly overpowers the noise of note taking and even the lecturer. The sight isn’t much better, a quick glance at laptop screens shows streaming videos, Facebook, and chatrooms galore.

Unfortunately, the problem doesn’t just stop at the culture and environment, but extends to those that help structure it. Our society is becoming increasingly one of political-correctness and regulation over implementation. In the classrooms, professors are burdened with mounting regulations and orders from the U.S. Department of Education (DoE), federal privacy legislation (HIPPA, etc.), state DoE, Board of Regents, and institutional policies and procedures. This doesn’t even include the problems that exist for professors in trying to accomplish research and publication requirements as well. Add on top of that, the unsaid nanny responsibility, to care for college-age students like misbehaving children in a nursery. Making it no surprise, that in the bustle of trying to meet all these demands as a professor, sometimes the central responsibility of teaching gets lost. Libraries themselves are being dolled-out for other tasks as well. Traditionally a repository of information and place to study, libraries now extend to centers of tutoring, technology support, movie rental, music rental, and various other non-traditional functions. With the ever increasing demands on librarians to organize and maintain these, the traditional purpose of libraries and study halls is diminished.

Unlike the movies, college isn’t a peaceful, well managed place, nor is it even necessarily composed of polite, well dressed eager minds ready to learn. Sometimes the reality is much more bleak and gritty than the fantastic impressions we get from the movies.