Since the early blogs for the class, I have tried to switch up my topics a little bit so not every post is about about Honey Boo Boo and trash/reality TV or parasocial relationships with Hunger Games duo of Josh Hutcherson and Jennifer Lawrence.

Finals are coming up and all the semester-long course projects are due in the next week or so. With that in mind, I thought it would be appropriate to talk about the portrayal of college students in media, though it might just be the sleep deprivation talking.
Traditionally, the college has been depicted as a giant party and students have been given a pretty bad reputation. From movies like Animal House to the more recent National Lampoon's Van Wilder and American Pie, college students have had all different types of stereotypes placed on them. There are usually a few different stereotypes that fall into the college student category. I liked how Kristen Hoverman from The Collegian described commonly portrayed college students:
"You have the jock in flip-flops that is dating the sorority girl in a pencil skirt, who is friends with the tattooed-slacker who rarely comes to class, who picks on the audio-visual geek and lastly the weird loner student who doesn't fit in...
I'd like to add to her list with the addition of the alcoholic, the pothead, and the party animal. You don't see too many of these stereotypes that are purely the jock or the nerd because lot of these character traits tend to overlap each other.
...Sometimes they will mix up the plot by adding the band nerd, the choirgirl or some snobby rich kid, but in a nutshell this is how college students are portrayed in movies."
But student's lives don't only involve the social aspects of college.
Students in college often deal with large amounts of stress from their academics and other pressures and responsibilities they have. The Impact of Stress on Academic Success in College Students is article by Sharon Hall Murff in which she refers to college students "a unique cluster of stressful experiences or stressors."
Murff finds that students are faced with multiple pressures including the task of making adjustments to live college life, maintaining their academic responsibilities, keeping up with managing interpersonal relationships, and housing arrangements and lifestyle changes.

that the combination of challenging classes and a more independent environment causes students to spend long periods of time studying. The academic stress combined with creating a new social network, being away from home, trying to find a job, and balancing time between friends and responsibility can cause negative impacts on students.
Scott states that everyone experiences stress differently and that students can experience a variety of consequences from the stress. Some may experience weight gain, explaining the infamous "freshman 15," while others could pick up unhealthy habits, such as smoking or drinking. Students could also struggle with perfectionism or eating disorders.
These stresses experienced by students are often overlooked by movies and television and college life is often misrepresented as one giant party. College students have much more going on in their lives than just partying and hooking up.
Here are the links to the articles I pulled information from.
Kristen Hoverman article here.
Sharon Hall Murff article here.
Elizabeth Scott article here.
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