A first-generation college student, hours from graduating, dreads leaving school and her faculty mentor for the "real world" and her traditional, Eastern European parents.

A college counselor watches anxiously as her teenage son applies to college without her help. As her son plans for his future, the counselor and her husband reflect on how quickly their lives have changed, seeking ways to steady themselves in the midst of middle age.

When a young father is hired for an English instructorship position, he struggles to balance playing the role of a teacher and meeting the university’s demands for a published scholar.

An American student sent to study at Oxford University undergoes a mental crisis as he wavers between fitting in with his English peers and defining himself as an American who deeply loves the Midwest.

A young college student is visited by his girlfriend for his birthday when they learn that they’ve unfortunately outgrown each other since he’s been away.

At a New York university, an academically-gifted college sophomore becomes unlikely friends with a popular sorority girl on campus. Over the course of the year, their friendship slowly deteriorates, ending in lies, theft, and violence.

Despite being on the verge of failing his English class, a forty-two-year old college student finds himself saving a life at his university.

A freshman in college deals with loneliness and grief as she attends the weekly office hours of an English professor at her school, who happens to be the father of her friend who died of brain cancer.

A female professor at a contemporary university remembers an old conversation with a former teacher of hers, which prompts her to reconsider her job, solitude, and love of reading.

A professor finds himself attracted to one of his students, allowing her to skip the final exams - but her resultant grade causes her to lash out at him and reveal harsh truths about his own life that he finds difficult to accept.