By “old”, I mean they were probably in college in the 1950s or earlier. Generally in the USA.
I went to college in what today they would call the late 1900s, and I definitely did not have that. What I experienced was a heavy workload, an interesting computer to mess around with, this new thing called the internet, and what I saw around for those who weren’t coping well was heavy drinking to get drunk and addictions to MUDs. No intellectualism.
Maybe what happened was that, in those biographies, they were probably generally culturally Jewish, from New York, scientists, writers, from a certain milieu. And the GI Bill happened in the 1940s and the flavor of college may have changed in the wake of that.
They may have been raised hearing the grown-ups talk over issues, increasingly participating as they grew up, whereas we were raised staring dumbly at sitcoms (“Hey, remember the time on Three’s Company when someone overheard something and there was a misunderstanding?”).
Yes. You were unlucky to have stupid friends.
I was in college during 9/11, which isn’t relevant, but you now know the timeline.
It happened at times. Sometimes we stayed up playing video games or getting drunk, and we talked. Sometimes it was stupid shit, sometimes it got deep.
Yes, I did cocaine in college
Yeah, bull sessions were (and still are) part of my experience. I’m a similar age, and had a similar university experience.
Sadly, I didn’t get a chance to watch Three’s Company.
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What do you think arguing about which Power Ranger was coolest at 3am online is?
Green Ranger and Dragonzord followed by the Quantum Ranger with the Quantasaurus Rex.
One of my friends back in the day was always about the White Power Ranger and it wasn’t until high school I learned he just like the first two words of that phrase. :(
I don’t know how our model of university translates to college, but we sat around a lot and talked politics. Whether it be by a river, on the balcony or in the forest. Usually with a glass of wine or some weed. Mid to late 2010s.
Had that at U of Chicago in the early aughts.
Yeah, except my experience, it was in a team speak server, smoking cigarettes over a game of unreal or quake 3 instead of a 3" diameter cigar over a game of chess. Spiritually and effectively the same as in those old biographies though.
For reference, this was at a midsized state university in the south in the early 2010s
Went to undergrad in early 2000s. We stayed up late in the dorms talking about the meaning of life and society and existence regularly. I think you just didn’t manage to find the smart interesting people. And none of us were “culturally Jewish”, sounds kind of dog whistly to me.
How silly. If I hated them, I wouldn’t be reading their biographies.
State College in the late 00s. For sure we stayed up late, solving the world’s problems (theoretically) as only young, not-yet-jaded people can. There were also people who couldn’t go three days without getting blackout drunk and I tended not to be good friends with them due to lack of common interests.
I also didn’t meet a single Jewish person until after I graduated college, there just isn’t much of a Jewish population where I grew up, so I’m deeply skeptical of that theory.
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