ABSTRACT
A community of students is a relatively uncommon form of social grouping in our society. It draws together men and women of similar age, ability and interests, making them aware of each other as the academically privileged representatives of their generation. Their years at university are an initiation into the intellectual élite of their society, and the sequestration, the ceremonies of graduation, recall the rites through which the age-grades of some African societies traditionally passed. Undergraduates are estranged from their past and their future, within a community more diverse in opinion and background than any they have known, or will know again, and yet extraordinarily homogeneous. This is the outstanding attraction of university life, and also the source of a pervasive anxiety. It is as important to discover how to transfer a generalized intellectual awareness from the learning situation to its field of application, as to try out the mastery of an academic discipline.
