Is This Also Like That at Your College? 10 Campus Experiences We All Secretly Recognize
Picture this: You’re sitting in a coffee shop with a friend who goes to a university three states away. As they describe their chaotic dorm life, overpriced cafeteria meals, or that one professor who assigns way too much reading, you blurt out, “Wait—is this also like that at your college?!” Suddenly, you realize: Maybe campus life isn’t so unique after all.
While every school has its own traditions and quirks, there are universal experiences that bind students across institutions. Let’s explore ten situations that’ll make you nod and say, “Yep, that’s exactly how it is here too.”
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1. The Great Course Registration War
No matter where you study, securing a spot in popular classes feels like competing in the Hunger Games. You wake up at 6:55 a.m., fingers hovering over your laptop, praying the registration portal doesn’t crash (spoiler: it always does). When you finally get in, that psychology elective you’ve been eyeing? Already full. Your backup? Waitlisted. Suddenly, “Intro to Basket Weaving” doesn’t sound so bad.
Pro tip: Upperclassmen often share secret registration hacks. Befriend them. Bribes involving pizza may or may not work.
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2. The Cafeteria Mystery Meat
Every college dining hall has that one unidentifiable dish. Is it chicken? Tofu? A science experiment gone wrong? You’ll never know, but you will hear students debating it daily. Meanwhile, the salad bar becomes a safe haven—until someone accidentally drops a cookie into the lettuce bin. Again.
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3. The Dorm Room Lottery (and Roommate Roulette)
Housing assignments are a gamble. You might luck out with a suite-mate who becomes your lifelong bestie… or end up with someone who blasts polka music at 2 a.m. and “borrows” your laundry detergent without asking. Either way, you’ll bond over shared complaints about paper-thin walls and broken elevators.
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4. The “Why Is This Club So Extra?” Events
From midnight pancake study breaks to campus-wide capture-the-flag tournaments, colleges host events that range from “genius” to “why does this exist?” Case in point: That one annual tradition where seniors race down the hill in inflatable dinosaur costumes. No one knows how it started, but everyone shows up to watch.
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5. The Professor Spectrum
Faculty members fall into clear categories:
– The Legend: Teaches that niche class everyone fights to take. Wears Hawaiian shirts, quotes Shakespeare during lectures, and somehow makes 8 a.m. classes tolerable.
– The Ghost: Posts slides online but is never seen in person. Rumors swirl that they’re an AI bot.
– The Hardass: Assigns 50-page readings weekly and grades essays in red ink thicker than your tears.
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6. The Library During Finals Week
The campus library transforms into a surreal scene during exam season. Students camp out in pajamas, surrounded by empty coffee cups and snack wrappers. Someone’s always crying softly in the stacks. The collective stress is so thick you could cut it with a protractor.
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7. The Unofficial Campus Mascot
Every school has that one animal (or person) that becomes a local celebrity. Maybe it’s the fearless squirrel that steals fries at the quad, the custodian who knows everyone’s name, or the philosophy major who juggles fire outside the library. They’re not in the brochure, but they’re iconic.
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8. The “Is This Building Haunted?” Debate
There’s always an old, creaky building on campus rumored to be haunted. Maybe it’s the abandoned theater department storage room or the math building with flickering lights. Freshmen dare each other to sneak in at night; seniors roll their eyes but secretly believe the stories.
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9. The Major-Switching Saga
Half your friend group will change their major at least once. The biology pre-med student becomes an art history major. The business major pivots to environmental science after a life-changing geology elective. Cue the panicked emails to academic advisors: “Is it too late to undo my life choices?”
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10. The “We’re All Just Figuring It Out” Realization
By senior year, you’ll have an epiphany: No one—not your professors, your classmates, or even the president of the Student Government Association—truly has their act together. We’re all pretending to be adults while Googling “how to unclog a shower drain” and eating cereal for dinner. And that’s okay.
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So… Is This Also Like That at Your College?
Whether you’re at a tiny liberal arts school or a massive state university, these shared experiences create a weird, wonderful sense of community. They’re the stories you’ll laugh about later—the time the fire alarm went off during midterms, the professor who accidentally live-streamed their cat walking on their keyboard, or the dining hall’s infamous “sushi” incident.
The next time you visit a friend’s campus or meet someone from another school, swap stories. You’ll quickly find that for every quirk that makes your college unique, there’s a hilarious, frustrating, or heartwarming parallel somewhere else. After all, higher education might teach us different subjects, but it universally prepares us for life’s beautiful chaos.
Got a “Wait, you guys have that too?!” story from your campus? Share it below—let’s prove that college life is weirder, messier, and more relatable than any of us imagined.
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