Occupation Student (1970)

the older you get the faster time flies in grade school the days may seem endless in junior high they go a little faster and in high school the temple picks up even more with sports and driving and dating but it's not until the first year of college that the pace of life hits its frenzy peak that first year is a big step on the way from boyhood to manhood every student and every campus is different yet they're enough alike so that what happens on one campus can show some of what's happening on most campuses and can provide an important look during a time when the public's view of the university is often as confused as a new freshman's first impressions this is the story of richard bain smith a bright young man from san diego california but it's also the story of every college freshman it was filmed at the university of california riverside but it's the story of changes taking place at every college it's about the relationships between faculty and students the use of beer and barbiturates the search for a new pattern change on campus and change in an individual it's a look at a demanding full-time job the occupation of students well the first day i got here you were supposed to come about three i got here about 11 o'clock in the morning and i walked around just all around the campus i'd never been here before so i just took myself on a complete tour you know and so i really you know i was really looking around and you know exploring seeing what was around the first few weeks are lonely and hard and maybe that's good because there's plenty to learn who hands out meal tickets what the professors want how to find your way in the bookstore [Music] you come to this place and you realize well i don't know anybody there was one girl from my high school who goes here and i didn't even know her you don't feel at ease really you know i would go out because i didn't feel like sitting around a room doing nothing [Music] billy or john or something of this sort in class richard finds himself with some of the brightest students in the state and the teachers expect them to perform at mimi's thanksgiving turkey dinner [Music] boy math is a lot tougher than it was in high school so there's a lot more studying for that you don't go home and do your homework in maybe 5-10 minutes anymore when you have an integration problem you work and you work and you work if classwork were the only pressure on them students like richard would breeze through college like fire through an old christmas tree but there are other pressures away from home often for the first time freshmen have to make decisions about classes and actions that may affect their entire lives there's just nobody that's going to tell you how to live your life anymore and you know you depend on yourself a lot more you learn a lot you wouldn't learn any other way and uh there's the whole thing about uh drugs and liquor and all that you just learn to make your own decisions i think that's the whole thing about college everything kind of relates to that i know where i want to go like i want to be a business administration major definitely i hope to go to law school and minor in computer sciences that's what he wants now when he's not worried about boosting grades or booting footballs the school that richard chose is not a party school it has a high scholastic rating and over half of its graduates plan to go on toward advanced degrees but six thousand healthy young men and women don't live just for their studies students today are aware of what's happening and they want to be a part of it no matter what this is donna saint-amande one of richard's friends i want to experience a lot of different things and i'm going to just do everything different and then i'm fine finding out what i like in life you know and exactly i don't really care people don't matter that much you know sure i want them to like anything but it doesn't matter anymore so much what they feel because i feel that everything's going to be changing eventually you want to get married i want to get married i don't know i thought i wanted a career when i first came here were you gonna be live technicians that was carol at first i was gonna be a doctor i didn't know yeah i was a doctor until i started filling out the applications and it was a lot easier to put down math richard's experience with adult activities was pretty limited when he was home and now that he's on his own he's beginning to learn sometimes the hard way that too much partying can mean grief in the morning still when there's work to do you've got to get up no matter how you feel [Music] so richard is doing well in a computer course this quarter the computer has become such an important part of civilization that the graduate who doesn't know how it works and what it can do will soon be as out of date as an engineer without a slide rule students here use a computer in many regular courses they write and punch cards for their own programs and if they've asked the right questions in just the right way they sometimes get useful answers from the machine richard's success with a computer doesn't help in calculus he's still having trouble that could mean real trouble if professors are concentrating on research and publications and don't have time left for students but richard is lucky the major emphasis here as at many schools is still on teaching and professors schedule time to work with students individually after richard pulled a d in one math quiz and flunked another he asked for help from his professor now the volume would be what in terms of the various dimensions be this out of part minus the inner part okay fine we're going to have the volume of the entire disk minus that conference cleared up some key points and helped richard recover enough to pass the course with a c no one gets athletic scholarships at this school that kind of scholarship is going out of style at many schools so its teams will probably never make the big time but it hosts a major tournament every year and does have a pretty fair swim squad the sports that really attract support though are the ones in which a majority of students can participate [Music] do this campus is located an hour from the beach an hour from a major music center about 50 miles from a desert resort and not far from fairly good mountain skiing [Music] in his first year here richard wants to try it all which he won't be able to do and he won't make the ski team either but at least he keeps trying [Music] like most college towns riverside has no sunset strip or times square so most of the entertainment takes place right on campus some of it has drawn praise from critics [Music] well let's check oh where are you going are you going out to find the yw well i'll come too what i'll come as well where to find it what the yw richard even tries medieval music he's polite but he still prefers the sounds of his own times [Music] the exciting thing about a university is that there's always so much going on everyone is concerned with his own things and yet somehow most are seeking similar goals knowledge the ability to think clearly and critically and a workable developing philosophy of life a good university doesn't just confirm conventional knowledge it opens up minds to new and better ideas so it should be expected that bright students questioning old established ideas in math and science will ask some penetrating questions about society too these questions have taken the form of loudly voiced student dissatisfaction about some courses and policies these arguments often produce changes in the way things are done because at this school there is a tradition of loudly airing and listening to opinions on every sign of almost every question this is philip lewis an outspoken conservative they kept espousing a very strong left-wing position and they were never censored invited speakers at the regular wednesday noon convocations are selected by a joint student faculty committee the opinion of the speakers ranges all the way from the conservative loose through charles evers to timothy leary the popularizer of lsd and other so-called mind-expanding drugs there are still a lot of people around who are feeling tight i submit to you that the hedonic gap is the only conflict in human life many in the ovary from speakers such as timothy leary proposes potentially disastrous action to bearded blue jean-garb students but these college men and women don't believe everything they hear they know the dangers as well as the supposed benefits of drugs he he turned it around and played word games with the guy that answered them i mean he turned the question around so that everybody laughed and he never really answered the question but you can screw up your life well at a bull session in richard's room following leary's talk the subject also turns to the problems of black power and violence in the nation like a lot of guys have never been in the ghetto and they don't know what violence real brute violence is like many schools uc riverside has been recruiting black and mexican american students for several years the idea is to make the number of blacks and chicanas in the student body more representative of the general population an active black students union here persuaded the administration to help publish a black literary magazine black students were elected homecoming queen and student body president but they are far from satisfied what we're asking for now is the black cities department most black people and specific black people are going on notions that have been handed down to them by white people who didn't really understand what they were studying about or looking at and so chancellor ivan hinderaker discussed the ethnic studies program with other administrators i think that we should have been at this a long time ago i think that every campus where this has not blown up is living on borrowed time after long and sometimes heated discussions the faculty and administration created both a black studies department and mexican american studies program one way to ensure that the school responds to the needs of all the students is to appoint members of all groups to responsible jobs arthur martinez for example is in charge of special programs booker williams is director of financial aids richard doesn't care whether mr williams is black or white he wants to know whether he'll get a short-term loan or not and he's worried about how he'll fare in the difficult courses of this last quarter of the freshman year there are other things to consider besides flasks and forensics and formaldehyde it's springtime spring is a cruel time at college the smell of new moon grass and the warm breezes are relaxing flowers are blooming and there's an almost overpowering desire to do nothing yet it's in springtime that the whole year rushes to conclusion [Music] richard is still troubled about his grades his girlfriend draft status and plans for next year his goals are changing too he now thinks he may go to a theological seminary when he graduates but he's not at all sure and the fact that he is still undecided is not necessarily bad because the purpose of the university is to arouse interest and help put new ideas into play and that is just what has happened richard bain smith has changed since last september he's more confident he understands the world a little more and he is beginning to see where he fits in and richard whose occupation for at least another three years will be that of student is beginning to see what the job is all [Music] about [Music] [Music] you