Did you go to College in the US?

[sr71plt]

The sticker I have on the back window of my car simply says "The University." Everyone in Viriginia knows what it's referring to--and, yes, a good many gnash their teeth when they see it.

[lovecraft68]

Originally Posted by sr71plt

The sticker I have on the back window of my car simply says "The University." Everyone in Viriginia knows what it's referring to--and, yes, a good many gnash their teeth when they see it.

Oh, you are soooo cool!

Actually when I here "The University" its always Ohio State that its associated with. Maybe that's just a football thing though.

[PennLady]

Originally Posted by sr71plt

The sticker I have on the back window of my car simply says "The University." Everyone in Viriginia knows what it's referring to--and, yes, a good many gnash their teeth when they see it.

I lived in Virginia for about thirteen years; NoVA, admittedly. I wouldn't have known what it meant, but I probably would have worked it out.

Originally Posted by lovecraft68

Oh, you are soooo cool!

Actually when I here "The University" its always Ohio State that its associated with. Maybe that's just a football thing though.

Well that's the thing. It could mean a different school depending on where in the US you are. If you told me you went to "The University," I'd have to ask you to clarify.

[3113]

You should also consider whether the college is in a college town. I went to UCLA and UCLA is not a college town. It's a neighborhood of houses and apartment buildings and condos with the college at one end--and a huge college it is, right next door to the equally huge UCLA medical center. So while there are dorms and frat houses, and restaurants and stores geared toward all the UCLA students, most students stayed on campus. Westwood is as much geared toward those living in Westwood and working at the medical center as it's geared toward the students. i.e. upscale grocery store, upscale restaurants etc.

College towns, on the other hand, are pretty much ruled by the college. I think this is similar to the UK where even if there are other residents living near or around the college, the college is the center of attention. I've been in such towns and they have a very different feel. More ethnic (and cheaper) places to eat, fast food, bars, hipper clothing stores, as well as stores selling college teeshirts, computers, etc.

In the U.S. if the basketball team wins a big game, and the college is a college town, then the party will take over the town.

[Cruel2BKind]

Originally Posted by 3113

You should also consider whether the college is in a college town. I went to UCLA and UCLA is not a college town. It's a neighborhood of houses and apartment buildings and condos with the college at one end--and a huge college it is, right next door to the equally huge UCLA medical center. So while there are dorms and frat houses, and restaurants and stores geared toward all the UCLA students, most students stayed on campus. Westwood is as much geared toward those living in Westwood and working at the medical center as it's geared toward the students. i.e. upscale grocery store, upscale restaurants etc.

College towns, on the other hand, are pretty much ruled by the college. I think this is similar to the UK where even if there are other residents living near or around the college, the college is the center of attention. I've been in such towns and they have a very different feel. More ethnic (and cheaper) places to eat, fast food, bars, hipper clothing stores, as well as stores selling college teeshirts, computers, etc.

In the U.S. if the basketball team wins a big game, and the college is a college town, then the party will take over the town.

My school gets like that with hockey.

[PennLady]

Originally Posted by 3113

In the U.S. if the basketball team wins a big game, and the college is a college town, then the party will take over the town.

or football, I'd think. In some cases.

[YDB95]

Originally Posted by SevenSquared

It's important that the dorm is large enough to contain a reasonable 'pool' of people, but not so large that the characters wouldn't know nearly everyone in the dorm (at least by sight if not by name). I was hoping something like 80 people (roughly evenly split male/female) might be realistic? Anything from 60 to 120 might work though.

That was about the size of most of the dorms at my college, so it's plausible. (Just as an example of how much this whole thing varies, another poster mentioned dorms with up to 1,200 students - that was the size of my entire college!)

It's also perfectly normal for the dorm to be coed by room these days. (The rooms themselves are single sex, but the floor will be mixed. Some colleges even do allow opposite sex roommates now, though I think that's still fairly rare.) At my college, all but two of the dorms were coed by room; the other two were coed but had single-sex floors, because those dorms only had one bathroom per floor.

[RuzieD]

Originally Posted by SevenSquared

Thanks for all the replies, they are all really helpful.

Just to fill you in on some of the details, the story is going to be about four guys who live in a dorm at college and their escapades to score with various girls who also live in the same dorm (co-ed dorms sound fairly normal - check). The story will be told from each of their four perspectives in turn and will mostly center around two social events, one midweek and then one larger one the following weekend.

Here's something to consider:

If I was one of these guys, coming into college with the knowledge I have now, there'd probably be somethings I'd do. I would join a frat (or at least try). I'd make sure to be the one taking the lead on activities, not just joining in them. I would keep my dorm room exceptionally clean and encourage my dormmate to do so as well. I would let my bro's know which girl I was interested in, but purposely *not* pay attention to her at first in any social setting. Generally, I'd be having fun and inviting people to join in. When drinking came along, I'd probably be the one getting the least smashed, so that when the opportunity arose, I'd take it.

Now, to the culture in general there are somethings that make for interesting paradoxes. More girls attended colleges in the US than men. This makes them (be necessity) far less choosy. It also makes they guys less likely to want to commit to a relationship (because they don't have to). A common compromise is "friends-with-benefits" in which a girl declares one guy "her territory." Her close circle of friends won't sleep with him, but she does. There's no relational commitment, just booty calls on a lonely saturday night.

Another strange paradox is that sororities are still meant to put the pretense of virginal, virtuous purity in some places. A girl can still get shunned for having sex with too many guys, even though her initiation into the sorority might have involved her performing oral sex on someone (of either gender). Frat brothers, of course, will shout their sexual victories from rooftops.

It's important that the dorm is large enough to contain a reasonable 'pool' of people, but not so large that the characters wouldn't know nearly everyone in the dorm (at least by sight if not by name). I was hoping something like 80 people (roughly evenly split male/female) might be realistic? Anything from 60 to 120 might work though.

What happens when the girls start chattering and these four guys start getting a reputation?

I was thinking for the smaller event maybe a dorm party, although this might stretch credibility as I assume these wouldn't be popular midweek. The larger event would need to be in a bigger venue I think. YDB95 mentioned that his college had a rec center where parties were often held. Is this a common thing? If so it could be perfect.

"Roommate dates" were really common in my undergraduate. At my undergrad, these would be off campus. There were still events like the occasional dance, frequent musical performances, etc. If a film major had something to share, that was always a nice excuse for a drunken stupid party.

[Tx Tall Tales]

Most of the questions seem to have been answered pretty well, but I thought I'd address #4. I played on sports teams at two colleges. I attended a huge state university and a large top 20 private university.

Freshman athletes were typically put in the freshman dorms. Randomly. Not all on one hall or anything, unless they were on scholarship that included their room. Most athletic scholarships were partial, not full-ride.

Interestingly, several of the Fraternities catered to one sport or another, and a lot of the Baseball players and Soccer players would join the same frat. Probably others, but I wasn't as aware of them. Also off campus housing would commonly have players from the same team in the same house.

Scholarship athletes who received room and board as part of their scholarship, were located in a block of rooms that the Athletic Director (AD) controlled. They would sometimes be in different buildings, but often on the same hall where ever they were. Same sports were almost all in the same building. Shared rooms typically housed two athletes.

Football, Men's and Women's basketball, and women's volleyball were typically full-ride scholarships. Almost none of the other teams were. I imagine it varies by schools. The Soccer coach had 10 scholarships, but he could divide them up into smaller ones to attract more players. As a baseball pitcher, I got about a $5000 scholarship, and that was one of the better ones. (Admittedly a long time ago.)

That's my $.02

[Cruel2BKind]

Originally Posted by RuzieD

Here's something to consider:

If I was one of these guys, coming into college with the knowledge I have now, there'd probably be somethings I'd do. I would join a frat (or at least try). I'd make sure to be the one taking the lead on activities, not just joining in them. I would keep my dorm room exceptionally clean and encourage my dormmate to do so as well. I would let my bro's know which girl I was interested in, but purposely *not* pay attention to her at first in any social setting. Generally, I'd be having fun and inviting people to join in. When drinking came along, I'd probably be the one getting the least smashed, so that when the opportunity arose, I'd take it.

Now, to the culture in general there are somethings that make for interesting paradoxes. More girls attended colleges in the US than men. This makes them (be necessity) far less choosy. It also makes they guys less likely to want to commit to a relationship (because they don't have to). A common compromise is "friends-with-benefits" in which a girl declares one guy "her territory." Her close circle of friends won't sleep with him, but she does. There's no relational commitment, just booty calls on a lonely saturday night.

Another strange paradox is that sororities are still meant to put the pretense of virginal, virtuous purity in some places. A girl can still get shunned for having sex with too many guys, even though her initiation into the sorority might have involved her performing oral sex on someone (of either gender). Frat brothers, of course, will shout their sexual victories from rooftops.



What happens when the girls start chattering and these four guys start getting a reputation?



"Roommate dates" were really common in my undergraduate. At my undergrad, these would be off campus. There were still events like the occasional dance, frequent musical performances, etc. If a film major had something to share, that was always a nice excuse for a drunken stupid party.

When did you go to college?

Again, personal experiences and all, but that sounds archaic.

[SevenSquared]

Originally Posted by PennLady

Will your main characters be American? Or British attending an American school? I ask b/c there are phrases that would be different. For example, Americans "go to college," no matter whether the school is a college or a university (and there is a difference, slight though it is). We wouldn't say, "when I was at university..."

Just a thought.

You're right, there is a whole heap of different terminology between the two. Here a college usually refers to a 6th form education (age 16-18), while all institutions where you earn degrees are referred to as universities (which are confusingly sometimes divided up into colleges). Other differences:

Co-ed - We never use this term. We would just say 'mixed'
Fraternities/Sororities - Don't exist over here really
Dorm - The word isn't alien to us, but we would usually say 'halls'
Freshman - We use the term 'Fresher' instead
Sophomore/Junior/Senior - We don't have these terms at all, we would just say 'second year', 'third year', 'fourth year'.

Despite being British, I tend to set all my stories in America and feature primarily American characters. Americans seem to be by far the biggest reader demographic on this site, so I cater my stories to that. Average Americans have a reputation, deserved or not, for shying away from media that contains non-American settings/characters.

[RuzieD]

Originally Posted by Cruel2BKind

When did you go to college?

Again, personal experiences and all, but that sounds archaic.

Not everything I posted there was based on personal experiences. The dynamics of gender identity has become a little bit of a hobby interest to me. Some of that comes from research I've read (recent, not as archaic as you can expect), others from experiences of friends who attended different universities than I did, and a little bit of personal experience.

Although I was exaggerating a bit when I said virginal purity. I did not any sorority sisters who believed that. I did however, know at least one girl who was (hypocritically) slandered for her sex life. I just noticed a little bit of duplicity with sorority girls I was acquainted with. I wasn't the only one who thought so.

[Cruel2BKind]

Originally Posted by RuzieD

Not everything I posted there was based on personal experiences. The dynamics of gender identity has become a little bit of a hobby interest to me. Some of that comes from research I've read (recent, not as archaic as you can expect), others from experiences of friends who attended different universities than I did, and a little bit of personal experience.

Although I was exaggerating a bit when I said virginal purity. I did not any sorority sisters who believed that. I did however, know at least one girl who was (hypocritically) slandered for her sex life. I just noticed a little bit of duplicity with sorority girls I was acquainted with. I wasn't the only one who thought so.

More the behavior of frats and sororities. We don't really have a sorority here, but I know a bunch of 'frat boys' and all of them are really nice. The whole 'sex acts for hazing' thing is just really unbelievable now. It sounds like the premise of a porno.

I understand the duplicity bit. The problem with sororities (or summer camp, or girl scouts, or group projects) is that you have to interact with girls or women who are not your friends. When I'm with my friends, I can talk very frankly about sex. In a group of women you aren't familiar with, there is always some sort of gossip or scandal, because all of them have different standards and levels of morality.

Which is why I only go to 'parties' with groups of my close friends. And stoners. Stoners are just the nicest goddamn people ever.

[SevenSquared]

Once again, thanks to everyone for their contributions to this thread. All this first-hand experience, even that not related to the questions I originally asked, is extremely helpful

Originally Posted by RuzieD

Here's something to consider:

If I was one of these guys, coming into college with the knowledge I have now, there'd probably be somethings I'd do...

The point of the story is that each of the four guys will have a completely different 'strategy'. They are not a group of four friends who are all similar people, more four guys thrown together randomly one night. They are all very different people, the only thing that they have in common is that they are frustrated by their lack of success with women so far in the year.

What happens when the girls start chattering and these four guys start getting a reputation?

Well the story will only take place over a single week, so there won't really be much time for much of a 'reputation' to develop. However, one of the central themes of the story (and actually my original idea for writing it) will be that the actions of all of the guys will have completely unintended ramifications for the other three, in a sort of chaos theory manner. The idea is that the four central chapters (each from the PoV of one of the main characters) can be read in any order, and the reader's perception of what is happening could be markedly different depending on which other chapters they have already read, if that makes sense.

[sr71plt]

Originally Posted by SevenSquared

However, one of the central themes of the story (and actually my original idea for writing it) will be that the actions of all of the guys will have completely unintended ramifications for the other three, in a sort of chaos theory manner. The idea is that the four central chapters (each from the PoV of one of the main characters) can be read in any order, and the reader's perception of what is happening could be markedly different depending on which other chapters they have already read, if that makes sense.

Yes, understood. And a very interesting approach. Let us know when it's done and can be read.

[SevenSquared]

Originally Posted by sr71plt

Yes, understood. And a very interesting approach. Let us know when it's done and can be read.

Sure, will do. Although at the speed I usually write stories it won't be for a while

[SevenSquared]

Sorry, just one more question if anybody is still reading this thread...

What do you actually call the academic parts of your day (you know, the parts where you're not drinking, sleeping or having casual sex :P)?

In the UK we tend to have 'lectures' (30-100 students in a large room with a professor lecturing on a subject) and 'seminars' (4-12 students in a smaller room with either a professor or a grad student teaching the subject in a more interactive way). More hands-on subjects like Engineering and Chemistry will also have 'labs' (10-30 students in a practical environment relative to the subject matter).

What terminology is used in the US?

[Tx Tall Tales]

I think the naming is similar.

300 students in one freshman chemistry hall was a lecture, held in a lecture hall.

Normal sized classes were just that - classes, never heard it referred to as a seminar. I hear Seminar, I think of post college business lectures.

Labs are labs.

[PennLady]

Originally Posted by SevenSquared

Sorry, just one more question if anybody is still reading this thread...

What do you actually call the academic parts of your day (you know, the parts where you're not drinking, sleeping or having casual sex :P)?

In the UK we tend to have 'lectures' (30-100 students in a large room with a professor lecturing on a subject) and 'seminars' (4-12 students in a smaller room with either a professor or a grad student teaching the subject in a more interactive way). More hands-on subjects like Engineering and Chemistry will also have 'labs' (10-30 students in a practical environment relative to the subject matter).

What terminology is used in the US?

This probably differs by school and the way they set up their classes. For example, when I took calculus and economics, three days a week we had a lecture, and one day a week we had a session with the respective teaching assistant (TA) that we called a "recitation." I don't know why and I doubt many other school use that, but it sounds like your seminar. We also had more people; a lecture might have up to 200 students, but the recitation had more like 20.

A seminar at my school, and what I've head about others in the US, is different. It's more used to indicate a graduate course, I think.

[soflabbwlvr]

At my school classes were mostly organized as follows:

Large, introductory level social science classes (100 and 200 level) typically had 3 hrs. per week of "lecture" from the course professor, and 1 hr. of "discussion" with a grad student teaching assistant (TA). The lectures were around 300 students, and the discussion about 20-30.

Science courses involved 2 hrs. per week of "lecture" and 2 hrs. per week of "lab", with the lecture given by the course professor and the lab conducted by the TA.

Introductory math courses were three or four hours per week of class with a TA, about 25-30 students per class. I didn't go past introductory calculus.

Higher level courses (300-400) were smaller and typically consisted of 3 or 4 hours per week with a professor, 15-100 students, and were a mixture of lecture/discussion.

Despite the specification of lecture, discussion, and lab in the course catalog, students generally referred to all three as "classes." E.g., "I have four classes today, starting at 8 and finishing at 3."

[datedsoul]

I never referred to any classes, regardless of size, as anything but "class", with the exception of "Labs".

[carlieplum]

Some liberal arts colleges have a "Senior Seminar" course for whatever your major is. But that's not the norm.

[SevenSquared]

Thanks again for the swift replies, very useful.

BTW, if anyone thinks they might be interested in editing this story, drop me a PM. While it will be quite a long story overall, I don't expect it to be particularly labour intensive, as it will likely take me several weeks, even months, to write all the parts and it can be edited a bit at a time.

[SevenSquared]

(double post)

[SevenSquared]

(double post)