College culture, students think, is not the real world. Over and over, they assert that they live in the [<em>insert the name of your college here</em>] “bubble,” segregated from the trials and tribulations of “the real world.”

Is this true?

Does even it matter if students <em>think </em>it’s true? Sociologists speak about “the social construction of reality” and “the real world” seems to be one of those constructions. So what kind of cultural work does our common-sense conception “the real world” perform? What happens when students make a distinction between professors and real people? For answers, click the button below.

[button]<a href="http://natureofcollege.org/essays/essays/the-real-world/">Link to "The Real World"</a>[/button]