A lot of what we think college life should be comes from pop culture, and is about as connected to reality as a movie or a sitcom.
Leafy campuses; rah-rah for the home team and the rest seems a bit phony when you're wandering around a 1960s-era city school with architecture inspired by the Soviet Bloc and a couple of hundred friends and family is a good crowd for a basketball game or any other sporting event.
You get your degree, count your debt and get the hell out.
As Canadians when we look south at events like March Madness it usually with some mix of awe, envy and WTF???
As in, seriously, John Calipari has taken two previous schools the Final Four and then straight to the NCAA penalty box for various rules violations and still has a job?
Oh, that's because as long you win, the rules don't seem to matter, at least as it relates to big time college coaches and the schools that hire them.
The NCAA generates $771-million (US) in television rights along from March Madness and players can't get extra money to do laundry, or afford to have their families come to the Final Four?
And why do adults who have never been to the University of Kentucky feel compelled to be fans of UK and buy their hats and merchandise; and overlook the fact that they have a used car salesman - and an unscrupulous one at that - as their head coach?
I mean reaching the moral high ground here doesn't even require a knapsack and a compass.
But it looks like fun, doesn't it?
Justin Ulba can confirm, that yes, its fun.
The Brampton, Ont. resident studies marketing at Butler University , home of the Bulldogs; everyone's favourite NCAA tournament underdog.
He had been impressed with the smaller US college campus he saw when playing in baseball tournaments during high school, and when family in the Chicago area suggested Butler he took the plunge. It's not cheap -- even with some financial awards from the school the ticket for the private education is $25,000 annually.
Now a senior, he is a huge sports fan, and feels himself blessed to have been at Butler during an historic era for the school.
Butler's been to the NCAA's each of his four years on campus, and of course to the Final Four the last two. Last year with the Final Four a stone's throw away in Indianapolis (Butler's campus is about 10 minutes from downtown) his Dad came down and they soaked in the entire magical moment, right up until Gordon Hayward's halfcourt heave against Duke rimmed out.
"The overall feel you get on campus is amazing," Ulba said in a telephone interview earlier this week. "Butler has really blown up. Friends back home who didn't even know where Butler was are all texting me, emailing me."
So what we'll be watching on television this weekend is what he's been living. Butler guard Shelvin Mack autographed the wall of the room he shares in his frathouse. He's spent the past four years watching one of the best college basketball teams in the country play at Hinkle Fieldhouse; the setting for Hoosiers.
For students admission is free, but honestly, it's priceless.
As he prepares for his final exams and balances an internship with the Indiana Pacers, Ulba elected not to join the throng of students flocking to Houston for Saturday night's game against VCU and - hopefully -- another trip to the finals Monday night against either UConn of Kentucky,where the hope is this time the game-winning shot will rim in.
Instead he'll be at his fraternity house in front of the big screen, having -- he allows --some beers, sharing an experience with friends he's been at school with for years, and a greater community he's never even met yet, but realizes he soon will.
"College sports are so big here and when something like this happens at your school there's just a sense of pride you get as a sports fan and as a student," he says. "You've got alumni coming back and bringing their kids to campus so they can share in the environment.
"You know that 15 years from now you're going to be meeting people and they'll find out you went to Butler and they'll ask: were you there during the years they went to the Final Four?"
When put in those terms you realize that maybe there's method in the Madness after all.