By “old”, I mean they were probably in college in the 1950s or earlier. Generally in the USA.
I went to college in what today they would call the late 1900s, and I definitely did not have that. What I experienced was a heavy workload, an interesting computer to mess around with, this new thing called the internet, and what I saw around for those who weren’t coping well was heavy drinking to get drunk and addictions to MUDs. No intellectualism.
Maybe what happened was that, in those biographies, they were probably generally culturally Jewish, from New York, scientists, writers, from a certain milieu. And the GI Bill happened in the 1940s and the flavor of college may have changed in the wake of that.
They may have been raised hearing the grown-ups talk over issues, increasingly participating as they grew up, whereas we were raised staring dumbly at sitcoms (“Hey, remember the time on Three’s Company when someone overheard something and there was a misunderstanding?”).
Went to undergrad in early 2000s. We stayed up late in the dorms talking about the meaning of life and society and existence regularly. I think you just didn’t manage to find the smart interesting people. And none of us were “culturally Jewish”, sounds kind of dog whistly to me.
Yes. You were unlucky to have stupid friends.
I was in college during 9/11, which isn’t relevant, but you now know the timeline.
It happened at times. Sometimes we stayed up playing video games or getting drunk, and we talked. Sometimes it was stupid shit, sometimes it got deep.
State College in the late 00s. For sure we stayed up late, solving the world’s problems (theoretically) as only young, not-yet-jaded people can. There were also people who couldn’t go three days without getting blackout drunk and I tended not to be good friends with them due to lack of common interests.
I also didn’t meet a single Jewish person until after I graduated college, there just isn’t much of a Jewish population where I grew up, so I’m deeply skeptical of that theory.
Yeah, bull sessions were (and still are) part of my experience. I’m a similar age, and had a similar university experience.
Sadly, I didn’t get a chance to watch Three’s Company.
