The Instagram Generation Goes to College
Throughout this week, the Cut explores college life, from politics and identity to parties, sex, and style.
It’s no secret that the number of women in college has been steadily growing over the past years; according to data released this spring by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 68.4 percent of 2013 female high-school graduates are currently enrolled in college. They’re also unprecedentedly prolific recorders of their own experiences — a Pew survey from last year found that 37 percent of college-age adults are on Instagram. With this in mind, we combed through the Instagram accounts of college women across the country — from LSU cheerleaders and Princeton sorority girls to black-lipstick wearers at Parsons — to see how they are documenting their undergraduate experiences. The varied results function almost as a contemporary reimagining of Jerry Mason’s 1979 photo anthology The Family of Woman (which was itself a response to MoMA’s seminal 1955 exhibition, “The Family of Man“), providing a poignant look at women from all walks of life.
Click through the slideshow for a look at the self-recorded experiences of students across the country, including dancers rehearsing at Juilliard, curated studio selfies from CalArts, a makeshift hallway Slip ‘N Slide at Smith, and engagement announcements from BYU.
