The College Experience: Then and Now

Times certainly have changed since your parents were college students. Over the past 30 years, there have been drastic changes in the way students learn and interact. With new technology, the college experience today is nothing like what it was when your parents first stepped onto campus.

Campus Life

If you stepped back into time to accompany your parents during their first week in college, you would notice some differences right away. They would have pulled up in your grandparent’s car, lugging a footlocker with their clothes, a few pictures and some books. They would have lived in a dorm with one or more roommates. In most dorms, they would have used a community bathroom down the hall that was shared with several other students on the floor. Their room would have been outfitted with just a bunk bed, desk, and chair.

Today’s student living experience is totally different. Most students no longer live in dorms. They spend their college years in student residences complete with the latest amenities. Some students live in mini-apartments, complete with granite countertops, in-unit washers and dryers, garbage disposals, and cable television.

A Trip to the Cafeteria

If you had followed your college age parents to lunch, you would have found a cafeteria-like atmosphere complete with long tables, plastic trays, and cafeteria food. The usual fare of sandwiches, meatloaf, and mashed potatoes would be expected, and there was one go-to place for all student-dining activities.

Today’s student knows nothing of the traditional cafeteria. Campuses are now outfitted with food courts that carry all of the top names in fast food. Dining halls offer full salad bars, steaks, Asian-fusion style grills, sushi bars, and vegan options. Marketplaces sell grocery items that students purchase to cook in their student residences.

Get to Work

A trip to your parent’s classroom would have been a real eye-opener. You would have observed students sitting at individual desks, notebooks and tablets open and ready to write down notes. The desktop, however, would be made of wood, not the home screen of a computer. The notebooks and tablets would be traditional paper ones, not Dell or Apple ones.

Student work would be posted to the blackboard, but not in an online chat room. This blackboard would be in front of the classroom. A chat room was just that—a room set aside where students would chat about their work. If you wanted to send a message, you wouldn’t use a cell phone or an instant messenger, you took out a sheet of paper, wrote your message and passed it to your recipient.

Do Your Homework

When it was time to complete an assignment, your parents would have made their way to the school library to do research. Instead of seeing students seated at rows of computers, you would have seen students lined up to use the card catalog or microfiche. If they wanted more information, they had to look it up in an encyclopedia. They would pore through aisle after aisle of books until they found what they were looking for. There was no Google, Wikipedia, or Yahoo. If they were caught cut and pasting anything in the library, they would likely be asked to leave and replace the pages they damaged.

After a long day at class, they would make their way back to their dorms and settle in for the evening. They would then make their way to the hallway where they would wait to call Mom and Dad from the dorm’s payphone

While the mode of education has changed over the years with new technology, one thing remains the same. Universities are still the rich institutions of learning that they always were.

Author Bio
Ryan Ayers is a writer and blogger who creates articles in relation to education. This article sheds light on the advancement of technology compared to one generation ago, and aims to encourage further study with a Masters in Gerontology.