Can Universities Shape Us?

Recently after reviewing the “Hot and Cool” lecture I began to think about my friends from high school and how we all started off on the same page about what was “in” or popular, or how we wanted to present ourselves. We followed the fads together from the “gangster” look throughout the beginning of high school, which soon morphed into the Abercrombie & Fitch polos and the classic converse sneakers.  I then thought about what happened to our styles and how they’ve drastically changed after University. We all decided to go to separate Universities, myself at UofT, another friend at Western, and the other at York. Universities sort of began to define our style and personas. The friend from Western adopted the “hipster” look and listens to basically anything that isn’t mainstream. I’ve realized that this image to me portrays an image of Western: trying to be different yet buying into the fads at the same time. With respect to UofT, my friend’s might call me “snooty” sometimes because I go here. Note: I’m not saying this applies to everyone but it definitely applies to some people. The vibe I get from people who go to UofT is that we think we’re the best school in Canada and look down on the other schools in Ontario - especially in Life Sciences. If you can get A+’s easily in a science course, your school isn’t legit. (That’s the mentality). Then there is my friend from York – a guy with a classic business type of personality who is studying finance. To me that represents the mould of York (note: I realize there are other images of York, but this one stands out the most to me because of Schulich and Osgoode). All in all, I found it interesting to see how we sort of adapted to our school environments.