Summary of Ch. 5 by Chip Fox

In Ch. 5, Nathan brings up the differences between classroom talk and dorm talk. In the classroom, people discuss things like "Did you do the reading for today?" and "Did we have anything due today?" (Nathan 97). But students never ask what people thought about the reading or if it impacted them in any way. In the dorms, students usually discuss the following topics: sex, body image, relationships, childhood, entertainment, and drug experiences (98). Nathan also brings up the question of "If the university would hand you a bachelor's degree right now, provided you paid for all your credits and left the dorms, would you take the degree and leave?" (101). Two-thirds of the respondents replied that they would not "take the degree and leave", but would want to stay and finish their years to earn the degree (101). Nathan observes that the reasons are widely varied from wanting the true college experience, to worrying about what it would be like in the real world. The last topic Nathan brings up is the "perfect class" which at AnyU, according to the students, is "Sexuality" (103). This perfect class is mostly due to the professor, who uses expletives and personal stories to grab the attention of his students. Also, this class reflected what students "really learn in college" and it fuses the old standard "formal academic content [with] an informal, largely social world" (106).

In this chapter, Nathan presents herself as a researcher and presents the students at her college as the test subjects. As she does throughout the whole book, Nathan constantly is observing and noting all of the important changes since she has been in college, and trying to get a feel for what the freshman experience is. In this chapter, she notes the differences in language throughout class time and leisure time, and also what students feel is most important about the college experience. It is a very informative chapter, and a very interesting one because of that.