Is college even fun any more?

The day I left for college was easily the most exciting day of my life.

First, I was going to the East Coast. I had been raised in Portland, Oregon, which was a pleasant, normal town to grow up in.

I think of my own parents watching me board that airplane in 1979. How excited I was. How bittersweet — and yet satisfying — for them that I was getting this incredible opportunity.

But to be back east! Near Boston and New York! To live where it snowed in the winter and the leaves turned colors in the fall.

East Coast people were smart and sophisticated. The men wore suits; the women wore high heels. People took trains from city to city, like in the movies.

A big music fan,