EVER watched a film set in an American college and wondered what the f**k is happening? Here are the ways they’re weird:
They share bedrooms
Imagine leaving home and discovering you have to share a room with some snoring dickhead who you hate within two minutes of meeting. Then there’s sex. It’s bad enough hearing someone shagging in the room next door, so imagine it three feet from your head. You can’t even have a loud wank to drown them out, because that’s not really a thing.
They have frats and sororities
These are absolute mysteries to British students, but according to films and TV they are large houses where students imbibe dangerous quantities of alcohol and bully and mildly torture each other in a ritual known as ‘hazing’. Membership lasts forever, which means you have to feign happiness and shout ‘Sigma Phi Alpha!’ whenever you see a fellow frat bastard who once made you chug a bucket of spit.
They can’t get legally shitfaced
The main reason British youngsters go to university is so they can get pissed on cheap booze in the student union every night of the week. Americans can’t drink until the age of 21, by which time they’ve probably left college, which might explain why they drink in secret in frat houses and fall out of windows a lot and die.
They love college-branded clothing
You wouldn’t be seen dead in a jumper advertising your uni, but Americans love hoodies, t-shirts and caps with the name of their alma mater. Maybe it’s because theirs have cool, snappy names like Columbia and Yale, whereas Nottingham Trent just sounds lumpy and depressing. And suggests you’re worryingly deluded about what impresses people.
They’re freakishly obsessed with their sports teams
Did your British university have a football team? Who the f**k knows or cares? Things are very different in the US though, where college sports are obsessively followed to the point where they have cheerleaders, mascots and something called tailgate parties, which is a social gathering with drinks and a barbecue while stood round the back of a car. So basically a car boot sale with beer that tastes of piss.
