TV shows set at university

The Boar TV writers tell us about their favourite shows about or set in a university 

Fresh Meat

Jack Prevezer 

Image: Walterlan Papetti / Wikimedia Commons

Arriving at university, you swiftly realise that it isn’t all about tequila, threesomes and ‘third degree gurns’. Rather, the experience is captured by writing 3000 words at 3am, while intravenously pumping the espresso that you bought with the last few pennies of your overdraft. Channel 4’s Fresh Meat captures these stark realities perfectly. From Jack Whitehall’s sheltered toff JP, to Zawe Ashton’s endlessly complex Vod, the show follows the lives of six students as they struggle to cope with the daily struggles of their university surroundings. Principally a comedy, the tone often shifts to the dramatic as the housemates deal with relationships, money woes, and the terror of what follows university. Yet, their portrayals are always sympathetic and relatable as they slowly realise that university isn’t the hedonistic lifelong experience they expected it to be.

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The Young Ones

Eleanor Dawson 

For many watching television in the 1980s, The Young Ones was a show as formative of cultural concepts of ‘university life’ as it was significant in the alt-comedy revolution. Focusing on four students at Scumbag College – anarchist Rick, punk Vyvyan, hippie Neil and cool-guy Mike – the sitcom depicts the mundanities of student life through a veil of absurdist slapstick humour. But despite hating each other, the characters display the kind of bond only formed through a shared three-year experience. Each bizarre event is endured together, and this camaraderie in the face of navigating ‘real life’ is something many students will relate to.

Gilmore Girls 

Beth Thomas

Image: David Zellaby / Flickr

Between seasons four and seven of Gilmore Girls, Rory Gilmore spends most of her days at Yale University, with the show focusing on the trials and tribulations that come with attending college (even if it is one of the best in America). We see Rory juggling the stress of making new friends, moving away from home, relationships, getting a degree and achieving her dream of becoming a journalist – something that many students attempting to secure careers can relate to. Apart from being highly relatable, the seasons at Yale feature some hilarious characters, such as Olivia, Lucy (played by Jessica Jones actress Krysten Ritter) and Paris, Rory’s closest friends at college who form strong relationships that can only be formed at university. So if you’re finding university difficult, it’s likely that the problem you’re facing has found its way into the Gilmore Girls series somewhere.