As an adult in university, there are only so many coming-of-age shows centred around high schoolers that you can watch without feeling like you don’t relate to them anymore. I used to see a lot of coming-of-age shows as unrelatable due to some of the actors not looking the age that they’re supposed to be playing, and the storylines sometimes seemed a bit too grown for stories about 14 to 16-year-olds. To prepare for university, which is when I started to discover shows that were set in universities or American colleges, which also started to seem a lot more entertaining once I turned ‘university’ age. Here are some shows that I recommend to anyone starting university, or anyone who wants to watch a show centred around university.
How To Get Away with Murder
This show stars Viola Davis, who plays Annalise Keating- a criminal defence lawyer as well as a lecturer at a law school. She then picks some of these students for her clinic where they’ll assist her in court. The first murder of the series is revealed in episode one alone, this then leads Annalise to team up with some of her students to investigate as well as cover a series of murders that happen outside of the courtroom. It’s not as relatable as the other shows on this list, but I’d say that all six seasons of the show are extremely thrilling and addicting to watch, especially with all the plot twists as well as the intriguing storylines and pasts of each of the characters, which get revealed as the show goes on.
The Sex Lives of College Girls
My current favourite show to rewatch on this list was created and produced by Mindy Kaling, and stars Renee Rapp, Pauline Chalamet, Amrit Kaur and Alyah Chanelle Scott. The Sex Lives of College Girls show follows the four roommates and how being away from home has given them the freedom to explore their sexuality as well as their hopes and dreams without being under the surveillance of their parents. Each of these roommates has their own unique struggles; Bela (Amrit Kaur) wants to pursue a career in comedy in writing which means she’d go against her parents’ wishes for her to become a doctor. Whitney (Alyah Chanelle Scott) has a secret romantic relationship with the assistant football coach, which needs to stay secret especially because her mum is a U.S. senator. There’s also Kimberley (Pauline Chalamet) who’s is a scholarship student from a poor family who’s struggling academically, and Leighton (Renee Rapp) who’s a wealthy student that’s struggling with her sexuality and hasn’t told her parents, or anyone that she’s a lesbian. What makes this show so special is the interaction between these four characters who may have likely never crossed paths or have been friends if they were all from the same town – which makes the show all the more entertaining and funnier to watch.
Boy Meets World
What makes this show different from the others on this list is that the show doesn’t actually start in university, but instead, all its seasons cover the story of Cory Matthews (Ben Savage) and how he goes through the different stages of life and education. What I particularly like about the show is that although it covers Cory’s life from elementary school to university, he keeps the same group of friends, and his teacher Mr. Feeny (William Daniels), actually becomes a professor at his university as well. Because the storyline follows Cory into his adult years, it gets particularly as it deals with issues such as substance abuse, homelessness, and sexual harassment more head-on than they would’ve addressed in earlier seasons, where their target audience was children. This element of the show to me makes it all the more realistic and representational of how people can experience both highs and lows whilst at university.
Grown-ish
This show is the spin-off to the sitcom Black-ish, which centres on Andre Johnson (Anthony Anderson) trying to get his family to assimilate into their neighbourhood as one of the only black families living there, as well as in his corporate job. However, in Grown-ish, Andre’s oldest daughter, Zoey Johnson (Yara Shahidi) leaves home to go to university with dreams of being a fashion designer, where she’ll soon find out that nothing’s going to go the way she planned it to, as she leaves home for the first time. The show is also good in showing the different diverse characters you can meet at university, for example, Ana Torres (Francia Raisa) is Cuban and a devout Catholic, but we see some conflict between her and Zoey’s friend group when it’s revealed that she’s a republican and a Trump supporter. In later seasons, we get to see Zoey’s little brother, Junior (Marcus Scribner) attend the same university after Zoey’s graduation, which I think is an amazing way to keep the storyline going whilst ending Zoey’s storyline. The show also features the acting and singing duo Chloe x Halle, who sing the theme song to the spin-off.
Dear White People
With this slightly controversial title, I had to start watching this show as soon as I started university. The show is a Netflix adaptation of the movie with the same title, that starred Tyler James Williams (Everybody Hates Chris) and Tessa Thompson (Thor, Creed). The Netflix show follows Logan Browning who plays Samantha White, a mixed-race girl who’s navigating her way through a predominantly white university. Samantha and the other students of colour are often subject to racial prejudice and social injustices on campus, which Samantha addresses on her university radio show “Dear White People”. The show makes for a hard watch at times due to the depiction of racist encounters in the show, but this makes it all the more intriguing as it leaves you rooting for a safer and better environment for Samantha as well as her friends who are people of colour at the university.