Guest writer: Eli on MTV's College Life

I had had high hopes for MTV's new reality series College Life, I really did. I thought the idea of documenting the lives of college freshmen was long overdue, but nonetheless, such a show was here and even though I am now two years out of college, I was excited. Though I missed the series premiere, as with any true MTV reality show, story lines are generally pretty obvious and don't differ much from episode to episode, so I was at no disadvantage watching the second episode. My thoughts:

I'm not sure what audience MTV is trying to appeal to (probably not me) but from what I saw College Life is not representative of my experience or the college experience of anyone else I know. College Life is a reality show about freshmen at the University of Wisconsin. 8 freshmen document their lives with a camera giving a very amateur quality to the show. Each student is supposed to represent a different mold of typical freshmen. One is a football player who represents freshmen jocks. Another, a somewhat alternative, independent thinker who was raised in a very conservative household. Of course there is the naive small town girl who has never been outside of the state of Wisconsin and is caught between sticking to her "back home values" and becoming "that girl." The remaining characters fall somewhere in between these stereotypes.

While you have the girl-guy drama that can be expected from any of MTV's shows, College Life spends far too much time showing the boring aspects of freshmen year. Too much sitting in a dorm room searching facebook and texting back and forth with friends. Frankly, I'm not sure who would find this entertaining. The deep issues that are brought up are equally ridiculous. The only issue or moral quandary that came up in this episode (and I am using this episode as representative of the show in general) is when Jordan debates getting a tattoo. In the end Jordan, who is bi-racial and who grew up in a very conservative Christian town, follows through with his dream of getting a tattoo (which takes up his entire arm!) despite his family values. Who cares!

I think I've seen enough of College Life.