This Was College (According To Stock Photos)

The best four years of your life. (According to stock photos.)

You've come a long way in the past four years. Look at you arriving on campus! Young. Impressionable. Leaning back on the family station wagon in a cool way.

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Sun hat: Check. Open suitcase with a cardboard box sticking out of it: Check. Ready for new experiences: Double check.

Jar of tuition money in hand, nothing was going to stop you from making the most out of your college experience.

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This $7.34 took you all the way to graduation.

You were nervous to meet your roommate, and especially nervous to share a bed with a total stranger for a full year. But you quickly became fast friends.

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"Up your nose wit a rubber hose." Despite being far too young to understand that reference, as Welcome Back, Kotter went off the air before you were born, you treasured that poster.

Oh, remember the first time you laid eyes on Eric, the sensitive guitar-playing boy from the floor below you? You would sit for hours on his bed playing Candy Crush on your phone while he strummed an E chord.

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He hadn't learned how to play a G chord yet, but when he did, he was only one chord a way from learning a whole song.

Your professor was also hot. It wasn't uncommon for your peers to unbutton their shirts and touch themselves seductively with their mechanical pencils.

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Like that guy in the top right corner, for example.

When your brain would hurt from all the college you were receiving, you would retreat to the library and put a book on your head to ward off the bad feelings.

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You did this a lot.

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Sometimes you would start reading the book and put your hand on your head instead.

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This wasn't as effective.

After your studies, it was time for your for a staple of college life: Wine and grape picnics on the quad!

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Look! It's Eric and his guitar again! And he brought a cooler of Capri Sun! Wow!

Then the real party started! You'd put on your best cat shirt and find a cute guy to talk to.

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He usually drank Corona.

A little later, you and your friends would ridicule that guy until he was forced to leave the party.

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Haha! What a jackass.

Oh man, the hangovers you'd get after those parties!

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You'd wake up with a bottle still in your hand. Popcorn all over the floor. What a mess!

Then it would happen the next night too!

Woo! Party!

And the next night.

You were spiraling out of control.

"I don't like the person you're becoming." – Your mom.

There was no escape.

No release.

No...

Then you leapt into the sky, grabbed your degree, and held it aloft!

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You did it!

You and fellow graduates gathered around and pointed to the grey Graduation Rectangle.

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"Read it and weep!"

Your mom was allergic to your diploma, but your dad sure wasn't!

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Get over here, you big lug!

As is customary, your diploma contained a small novelty graduation hat, $202 in cash, and some quarters for laundry.

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You earned it, graduate!

"Good job at college! Good luck at life!" – Your ethnically diverse friends

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"Bye bye!"

"Bye! Thanks for the matching folder and backpack combo, college!" – You

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