The student news site of El Camino College

El Camino College The Union

The student news site of El Camino College

El Camino College The Union

The student news site of El Camino College

El Camino College The Union

Union Comment: Depictions of party life encourage teens to attend college

College life has two sides to it. One side is going to classes, doing homework, going to seminars and museums.

The other side is the partying side. Drinking parties and just being buzzed and stupid for fun, but the mass media only portrays one side of the college life-the partying side.

Society does not see this first side of the college life; students being wired on caffeine to stay awake during a night of studying for finals.

The mass media does not portray college students’ lives as being stressful because it does not reinforce the value of getting a higher education to younger students.

Scenes such as in the movie “National Lampoon’s Van Wilder,” where Taj, an Indian American, is shown getting greased up to have sex for the first time with a blond bombshell are helping produce our nation’s future brain surgeons.

Scenes like the one in “American Wedding,” where Stifler is having a dance off with a gay guy in a gay club is what encourages our future presidents to get a higher education.

As twisted as it may seem, the mass media showing movies and television programs portraying college students having keg and toga parties actually contributes to influencing teenagers to go to college.

All students have gone to some kind of institute of education since they were three years old, starting from preschools, kindergarten to elementary, and so on.

At this point in their lives, most teenagers do not like their educational institutions.

They are stressed trying to get homework done on time for class, stressing over tests, stressing over nagging teachers and stressing over all the peer pressures that comes with puberty.

Showing college students as already burned-out does not encourage teens to go to college. It would be purely suicidal on society’s part to do so.

With help from the mass media, society encourages teenagers, who are considered our nation’s future, to go to college by showing it as of the best experiences they could have in their lives.

In our society, nobody can doubt the mass media’s influences on teenagers.

Movies like “Road Trip” show unusually sexy main characters hooking up with all kinds of people and hitting a variety of parties along the way; it is what convinces teens that college life would the greatest experience of their lives.

Once teens do decide to go to college, they realize that what they saw in the movies is somewhat true.

While going to all the parties, carrying on and drinking, teens start to mature and soon realize the importance of an education as well.

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