College Bored

“College Bored” was the third episode of the first season of Daria.

Summary
The Morgendorffers visit some friends who express concern in preparing their daughter for the SAT tests (despite their daughter being a toddler) to ensure she'll attend the right college. Faced with that, Helen and Jake decide to enroll Daria and Quinn in a college prep course, to the annoyance of both girls.

The prep course is held at Lawndale High and includes several freshman and sophomore students. The instructor coaches them on how to take PSAT exams and invites them to consider what they want out of college. Students daydream about their college future life: Kevin imagines himself as a sucessful QB; Brittany imagines receiving her diploma while walking on a model runway; Jane imagines herself a sucessful artist, having ditched college; Quinn imagines being the roommate/object of desire for three good-looking male students; Daria imagines being invited to go to grad school while still a freshman (however, even in her fantasy, the rationale for the invitation disappoints her).

Also, as part of the course, all students have to visit a college, so Jake and Helen enthusiatically decide to take their daughters to their Alma Mater, Middleton College. When they visit the campus a few days later, they are greeted by Heather, their tour gide. The four quickly separate, however, as Helen and Jake want to check his old room and Quinn wants to check the fraternities.

Helen and Jake reminisce in his old room, whose student occupants seem only to hang out, listen to loud music, surf the web and pay no attention whatsoever to the visitors. Remebering suddenly the sexual mores of college students, Helen rushes out in a panic, searching for Quinn, asking students of her daughter's whereabouts and posting notices. Her searches are fruitless, succeeding only in being harassed by male students who are pledging fraternities. While this happens, Jake visits the loan office, where he is informed of the high of college fees and offered information on possible student loans from, of all places, a candy store.

Meanwhile, Daria and Heather had ended up in the Heather's room, where Daria can see college student life firsthand: watching Sick, Sad World and, according to Heather, working a stupid job and asking the parents for money. When Heather receives her term paper by mail, full of mistakes, Daria turns it into an opportunity to make fast money, as she offers to rewrite or correct papers for the ignorant and/or lazy college students.

As this happens, Quinn, having separated earlier from Daria and Heather after having been mistaken for a sorority pledge, ends up at a party. She teaches some frat boys a drinking game and ends up later being hailed as Keg Queen. It is while she is being hailed as such that the rest of her family, along with the police, finally find her. The relief of finding her is brief, as they are all thrown off campus by the police for allowing a minor into a frat party.

Later, back at the prep course in Lawndale, the students relate their experiences: Kevin tells of a hazing he was subjected to (to his delight); Brittany relates a poetry reading she attended and participated in; Mack mentions the "first-string exemption," which allows top athletes to never havie to take exams (to his disgust); Daria and Quinn argue about how they had been thrown out, to the chagrin of the instructor.

Later that day, at home, the Morgendorffers celebrate the invitation Quinn has recieved for Manatee College, in Florida... until Daria points out the college providess no classes, only accomodation for an extremely high price. The conversation is interrupted by a college Midleton student, who has come to provide payment for some Daria's papers: this quickly leads Helen in confiscating the money and ending this activity, as Daria laments later over pizza with Jane.

Trivia
The famous Middleton College would be revealed in subsequent episodes to be a second-tier school at best, despite its fame.

The letter Quinn receives from Manatee College is reproduced in The Daria Diaries.

“College Bored” and Fanfic
Daria writing papers for the undergrads in this episode has been used in some fanfiction as a possible side occupation for Daria, exploring her mercenary side. Examples include: Daria's Season of Good Will and Out of the Slushpile, both by Nemo Blank.

Middleton College would later be used or referenced in some fanfiction works.