In my formative years, I only had to hear the opening strains of A Different World's theme song before I would get unbelievably excited, Pavlov's dog-style, for the higher education hi jinks that would ensue over the next thirty minutes.

By this point in television history, The Cosby Show had become a tad bit tired, and A Different World was like my weekly TV window into the world of black after watching whites hog the screen the other six days of the week. A Different World can be faulted for only one thing, and that's horribly misinforming my impression of what college is actually like. When I first stepped onto the University of Virginia's campus I was dismayed to see that the dining hall was not run by a grumpy bald man with a heart of gold. And my dorm room? It was like a quarter of the size of Whitley Gilbert's, with cinderblock walls. It all went downhill from there.