Hollywood films have presented audiences with stories of campus life for nearly a century, shaping popular perceptions of our colleges and universities and the students who attend them. These depictions of campus life have even altered the attitudes of the students themselves, serving as both a mirror of and a model for behavior. One can only imagine how many high school seniors enter college today with the hopes of living the proverbial Animal House or PCU Greek experience, or how many have worried over the SAT and college admissions after watching more recent movies like 2004's The Perfect Score. This book explores themes of college life in 681 live-action, theatrically released, feature-length films set in the United States and released from 1915 through 2006, evaluating how these movies both reflected and distorted the reality of undergraduate life. Topics include college admissions, the freshman experience, academic work, professor-student relations, student romance, fraternity and sorority life, sports, political activism, and other extracurricular activities. The book also includes a complete filmography and 66 illustrations.

Tracing the collegiate film genre from the first silent offerings starting around 1915 to the realistic recent critical portrayals of college life, this study examines how collegiate films have reflected our changing tastes and values. An extensive filmography is also included.

A whip-smart fiction debut, Our Secret Life in the Movies riffs on classic and cult cinema. Inspired by films from silent-era documentaries to music videos, the authors unfold a dual narrative about two boys growing up in the 1980s. Coming of age during the last days of the Cold War, these boys dream of space exploration and nuclear winter, Reaganomics and Dungeons & Dragons, Blade Runner and Red Dawn. Haunting, cinematic, and full of life, Our Secret Life makes it clear that we are in the movies and the movies are in us.

Hollywood films have presented audiences with stories of campus life for nearly a century, shaping popular perceptions of our colleges and universities and the students who attend them. These depictions of campus life have even altered the attitudes of the students themselves, serving as both a mirror of and a model for behavior. One can only imagine how many high school seniors enter college today with the hopes of living the proverbial Animal House or PCU Greek experience, or how many have worried over the SAT and college admissions after watching more recent movies like 2004's The Perfect Score. This book explores themes of college life in 681 live-action, theatrically released, feature-length films set in the United States and released from 1915 through 2006, evaluating how these movies both reflected and distorted the reality of undergraduate life. Topics include college admissions, the freshman experience, academic work, professor-student relations, student romance, fraternity and sorority life, sports, political activism, and other extracurricular activities. The book also includes a complete filmography and 66 illustrations.

The struggles and achievements of today's college students are thrown into stark relief in this fascinating account of how such students make meaning of their lives. Author Mary Grigsby uses the voices of students themselves to discuss how they view, adjust to, and participate in the college student culture of a large midwestern university and to explore what they think of their educational experiences. Topics include a look at a typical day on campus, student subcultures and the lifestyles they engender, whether college life conforms to the images and scenarios of popular culture, and student approaches to making it through college. Going to college has become the major coming-of-age experience for many people in the United States, and Mary Grigsby has provided a compelling, readable, and up-to-date account of this formative period.

From The Graduate to Revenge of the Nerds, this book delves into how movies treat the classroom.