“In the Fire of Their Youth”

After living among Rutgers undergraduates for 130 days, Michael Moffatt provides students of American higher education with their first view from the dorms. Coming of Age in New Jersey gives an insider’s view of the obsessions of student life: grades and majoring, sexuality, work and play, and making friends. He concludes that student life is both better—more genuine, purposeful, and intellectual—and worse—more hedonistic, racist, and sexist—than other scholars have argued. From Moffatt’s dorm room, the rest of the campus looks drab and remote, confused and confusing, and even sinisterly bureaucratic.