forum Do Mean Girls/Guys exist in College?

Started August 13, 2020 by Krynn

tune

Okay so I'm writing a romance story set in a college and one of my characters is deaf. Are people in college typically mean to people with difficulties like in high school or do they keep to themselves most of the time?

Yeah, people in college are there to learn. They're stressed, overworked, dedicated, and nobody's got time to pick on each other. It's pretty looked down on actually. Some freshmen might be holding onto that from high school, but it gets beaten out of them pretty quickly simply because no one cares about them and their opinions.

It does depend on the level of the college, as well. As much as I love my local community college, it contains students of every type, because it's the cheapest option. Ones who have no other options and are really trying their best, students who are there because their parents are making them go, students who may genuinely care about what they're learning, but wanted to get into a better college, etc. There's students like me, who just take passion courses because they're cheap, high school students doing early college, so on and so forth. Dedication and maturity levels vary.
In higher-grade, more expensive colleges, they only accept applications of people they think are going to
A) Complete their degrees
B) Do the school a favor by attending and doing well and making the school look good
C) Are dedicated and mature enough to get through the (very painful) application, FAFSA, scholarships, essays, and so on and so forth.

Another reason there's fewer cliques is because unlike high school, where a class might go all day together through their different classes, in college, you likely share one, maybe two classes with someone, since they all have their own degrees they're pursuing. Even if you share multiple subjects, some classes run multiple times, and you might sign on for the evening class because that's the only space you had, and your buddy might be in the morning one. People just don't talk in the classrooms unless they know each other outside the classrooms, or there's some time before the teacher shows up.

Hope this answers your question~

@Oakley-is-Oaken-Bull Thank you so much! This helps me out a lot!

Ofc! :D Glad to be of service <3

Yeah, no. There aren't any cliques in college really. People do tend to like hanging out with people they're in a frat/sorority with, fellow club members, and people with similar fields of study, but the maturity level is there that wasn't there in high school, and we're not here to knock people down. We're all just trying to make it.
Though honestly? Mean girls/guys don't really exist in high school either. Sure, there are isolated instances of rude/mean/petty people in all age groups, but not in clique form, really.