Internet sites focusing on college provide chuckles

  JASON CHEN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff

By Brent Hopkins
Daily Bruin Senior Staff The first day of college brings many
things to the bright-eyed young student: world class academics, big
name athletics, a chance to make life long friends and, of course,
high speed Internet connection. The first three are exciting and
all, but for all intents and purposes, the final one is the most
exciting and possibly useful. Though by now most students will have
had a chance to log onto the vaunted information superhighway, they
may be unfamiliar with all the information available within its
vast murky borders. Particularly useful to those newly minted
Internet hounds will be college-related Web sites, which helpfully
preach all the bylaws of how to be a successful student For those
who’ve already played the collegiate game for a few years,
these sites aren’t quite so informative, but they do provide
interesting diversions. These sites are worth a visit for
off-campus residents blessed with DSL or cable modems. For everyone
else with those creaky old modems that seem so antiquated after
they’ve moved out of the dorms, visits to these sites may be
better reserved for when you’re slacking off in the library,
pretending to be looking up important information for class.

College Stories www.collegestories.com
Everyone has a disgusting college story to tell. These will soon
become a staple of conversation once you return home and meet-up
with all your high school friends once again. Whether it’s
that time your roommate blew her nose on your sock and forgot to
tell you, or the incident where you accidentally walked in on him
trimming unsightly back hair with your razor, you’ll want to
be able to top everyone else back home. College Stories takes this
a step further, serving as a clearinghouse for all the ridiculous
tales you’d ever want to hear about university life. From
professors from hell to disturbingly off-color sexual exploits,
this site has a wealth of odd tales. In exploring the site,
it’s never really clear whether the stories are really true,
but they’re amusing enough that it doesn’t matter. You
thought your anecdote about throwing up in a crowded dining hall
was the tops? Try beating the one posted here about the girl who
accidentally crawled into her boyfriend’s father’s bed
after one too many at the bar. Though many of the stories are
nothing but I’m-so-cool self-indulgence, like the mindless
tale of the two friends beating up some misguided police officer
who stopped them for driving drunk, lots of them are genuinely
funny. Many will be fodder for countless e-mail forwards for quite
some time, no doubt.

Study 24-7 www.study247.com In theory,
this could be a very useful site for those more interested in the
academic side of college life. After all, not everyone can spend
their whole time at a fine university goofing off and getting into
trouble, as collegestories.com would lead you to believe.
Unfortunately, Study 24-7 is so devoid of useful material, students
who visit the site will end up frustrated and return to more
fooling around. The premise is sound: they want to create an online
community of students that can discuss their studies online.
Students from across the continent can study together, sharing
notes, talking theory and uniting in one grand academic collective.
The reality of the site is a little less shiny and impressive,
however. The “discussion groups” section is empty, the
chat rooms do little more than crash your Internet browser and the
virtual notes are really not all that helpful. The site offers
notes from many universities nation-wide, but from a random
sampling of those culled from UCLA, they are sadly lacking in any
academic merit. Study24-7 users looking for a nice supplement to
their classroom experience will find only dead links and notes that
are mediocre at best. Those interested in diverting themselves from
this not-very-rigorous studying can visit the “Brain
Games” section. Then again, since there’s no content
other than a “˜coming soon’ sign, they won’t find
themselves diverted much. While Study 24-7 has good aspirations, it
never makes good on them. Collegiates in search of a truly good
education will be better served by just going to class.

College Humor www.collegehumor.com
It’s kind of sad that once people get to college, they still
amuse themselves with jokes about various bodily functions, lame
digitally altered photos and short movies of people hurting
themselves. College Humor has these in no short supply. As crass as
all these are, the site is really rather amusing. The videos of
people getting run over by cars, which look suspiciously fake, are
definitely tasteless, as is the majority of this site’s
content, but at least it’s entertaining. Most of the material
contained within is nothing new, just dumb jokes available widely
across the Internet. Where College Humor succeeds, however, is in
its original content section. The videos of its staff shopping for
freezers and generally running amok in department stores
aren’t exactly Oscar-quality, but they’re funny enough
to warrant a visit. There’s also an extensive
“IM-Abuse” section, containing transcripts of the
staff’s attacks on unsuspecting instant messengers over the
Internet. While these selections are fairly crude, there’s an
undeniably interesting element to watching these poor chatters get
preyed upon. While College Humor isn’t the most sophisticated
site around, it’s well suited to the not-so-erudite crowd.
Those with a semblance of good taste will want to avoid it, but
others will dive in headfirst.