5 Signs You Peaked In College

As a cultural scholar such as yourself might know, there’s this terrific Hoodrow Allen song called Eighteen Cool; a song that tells the story of a kid who wasn’t crushing the social status express in high school, but is now achieving great success (very nice), hooking up with countless girls, and overall sticking it hard to the formerly popular kids.

As Hoodie croons in the chorus “middle finger to the dudes back in high school…cause you peaked at 18, cool.“

Hoodrow, of course, is implying that there are people out there who thought that high school is everything. I think the same sentiment could definitely apply to college — perhaps even more so, given that college is often hyped up to be “the best four years of your life,” and because the transition to the postgrad world is often abrupt, radical, and far from JB Smoove.

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With that, here are 5 signs you peaked in college:

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1.  You Hang Out With The Same People, And Talk About The Same Things

I think individuals could be friends forever, but I think it’s very hard for groups of friends to maintain intimacy for prolonged periods of time. Groups of friends are generally brought together through common circumstance — such as living together, being on the same sports team, or being snobbish about the same three-named directors. So when the homeostasis of that situation is disrupted, it can sometimes become difficult to maintain that group dynamic given the lack of anchor.

When the anchor falls out from under you (i.e., college graduation) and you’re unable to adjust, things become stagnant. Being stagnant is dangerous, as postgrad stagnation often consists of sitting in a circle drinking bud lights, having nothing of real substance to say to each other.

2. You Consistently Try To Replicate Collegiate Experiences, Without Adjusting For Present Day

Big time college events — such as attending football games — are done very different in college than they are when you’re 28. When you’re 28, you’re probably not remotely in jeopardy of blacking out before the game starts. (If you are, you should probably leave this article and go to one written by a medical professional.)

There’s this awkward in between though (23, 24, 25) in which recent graduates are caught in the middle — slightly too old to fully participate in the shenanigans, but young enough to maintain that sentimental attachment. After all, part of the event’s magic was waking up at 8pm and hosting the kegs and eggs pregame…and what’s the big game without kegs and eggs?

Of course, there comes a point in every career where you need to make “the leap” into the next realm. See: Seth Rogen playing more mature, adult roles. This must occur, otherwise articles on the internet like this one will passive-aggressive shame you.

3. You’re Not Committing Career-Wise

This isn’t so much a “peaked” in college as it is a “you haven’t moved on from college.” Then again, so is everything on this list. “Peaked” just sounds a lot cooler.

Anyway, not being invested in the now probably means that you’re still invested in the past. Or at the very least, you’re definitely not enrolled in Mark McGwire’s school of not being here to talk about the past.

Mark McGwire would clearly be a terrible peaked-in-college postgrad.

4. You Reminisce About Things That Happened In College Like They Happened Yesterday

And totally ignore the fact that yesterday was actually the day you were really pumped because you found out you could work during the weekend and rack up a ton of overtime.

5. You’re Still On The List-Serv

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I get a weekly digest of emails from my fraternity list-serv — which was great right out of college, but is now the email equivalent of showing up at a party that you used to be a big deal at, but are now kinda creepy. I’d email someone to get off it, but I’m not really sure who I’m supposed to email. How sad.