The 5 Stages of The Barden Bellas Group Development

********WARNING Spoiler Alert**********************

1st Stage- Forming: 
     Barden University holds their annual a capella auditions after the beginning of the school year. Becca, Fat Amy, and the others audition for their spot on the Barden Bellas. After deciding on their new group members, Chloe and Aubrey hold initiation for the new Bellas. This is where the forming stage of their group begins. Each member of the group is introduced and get their first look at the life of a Barden Bella group member. Group rules are explained to each member, but obvious confusion and displeasure about the rules are evident.

2nd Stage- Storming:
     The Barden Bellas hold their first meeting as a group. This is where they begin to really start to prepare to complete their task goal, winning the a capella national championship. The Bellas face their first internal conflict with one of their members breaking a group norm by sleeping with a Treblemaker. The conflict is dealt with awkwardly and with many of the group members unhappy with the outcome. Regardless, the Bella's begin to start practicing for the southeastern regional competition. They perform awkwardly as each member is still individually performing and not as a group but are still able to advance to the semi-finals.

3rd Stage- Norming:
    The Bellas prepare for the semi-finals. Their performance has improved dramatically and the group has grown closer. Although tension still is evident between Becca and Aubrey, with Becca disagreeing with the song choice that Aubrey decided on. This leads to Becca doing an impromptu song change during the performance, leaving the group a little unsettled. Becca has now broken one of the expected group norms and is punished by being essentially kicked off the team. After Barden's Spring Break the Bellas get a call explaining that they will be performing in the Finals. The Bella's call for another practice and each member shows up, including Becca. Quarrels between the members break out, but in the end they end up making up and sitting down to finally discuss things and subsequently grow closer as a group.

4th Stage- Performing:
    The Bellas sing a remix of the song "Just The Way You Are" by Bruno Mars. They are able to finally harmonize together and have found their groove as a group. The Bellas focus on completing their task and perform perfectly at the finals.

5th Stage- Adjourning:
   The Bella's win the finals and have successfully completed their goal, ending their time as a group. The movie ends showing the remaining Bellas the next year starting off the a capella auditions, getting ready to start the process all over again.

College: A Not-So-Scary Reality

"College will be the worst 4 years of your life."

  4 years of high school and this is the biggest lesson that my teachers have tried to drill in my head. As a brand new freshman straight out of high school, I must say that this whole college thing is frankly, disappointing. After being told story after story about how horrible college is compared to high school, I was not expecting to be sitting in classrooms of about 30 students, openly communicating my thoughts and ideas with both my professor and my fellow classmates. The image that was formed in my head by my well-meaning public school teachers does not correlate accurately to the actual reality of college.

  Then why is it that public schools, and society in general, have such a negative perception on college? Is it just Weber State University that doesn't have the stereotypical professors who stand at the front of a lecture hall and drone on and on about a topic without pausing to check with their students? Am I missing out on a crushing amounts of homework? Or has high school really just over-prepared me that much for college? Before hearing what some of my fellow classmates had to say about what they expected college to be like I was more inclined to think that Weber State was just an easier school than most. Now I'm starting to think maybe it isn’t the college but my high school that has skewed my perception of college .

  Hearing the views of a couple of my fellow classmates who had graduated over 10 years ago has made me realize that I had, unconsciously, only been selectively paying attention to how others view college. It turns out that not everyone has been conditioned for as long as they remember that college was just some horrible thing that you had to force yourself to get through in order to graduate and not work at McDonald's your whole life. It turns out that they had the impression that college was going to be easier then it is and that they could get by with only doing about 5 hours of homework a week like they did in high school. I may or may not have accidently let a little laugh slip out when I heard this confession. Only 5 hours of homework a week? Ha! I was lucky if I got by with less than 5 hours of homework a night, let alone a week. Has high school really gotten this much harder in the past 10 years or did I just put more effort in my homework then they did? Most likely I’ll never discover the answers to my questions and I guess I’ll have to be okay with that. College is college, whether you think it’s hard or not, it still stands that in today’s society, college is a requirement to be able to function in modern day society.