A little while ago, there was a flurry of excitement around college. Something about "being picked" by third year girls. I had no idea what this meant, but several of my male friends, it seemed, had already been "picked". Apparently, it all revolved around a mass social outing in a few evening's time, for which older girls picked fresher boys as "dates". To my relief, only a handful of girls are eligible to pick, so being left out doesn't necessarily mean I'm completely hopeless.

Universities in mainland Europe are smarting about the international league tables compiled by the likes of Times Higher Education in London and Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China. These show American universities as the most successful research powerhouses in the world, with the United Kingdom also doing remarkably well. The European Commission is well aware of the causes: the dead hand of state control means that Continental universities have found it difficult to innovate.

Entrepreneurship is all the rage on British campuses. Forget protest, hedonism or apathy, today's undergraduates, are passionate about setting up their own businesses.

Could the United Kingdom produce its own Barack Obama as Prime Minister? The question nags away in our minds as we contemplate a new world graced by the first black president of the United States. Obama's election was social mobility at its most dramatic and inspiring, a welcome ray of hope in these gloomy times of impending economic hardship. The president-elect has sought to play down the colour of his skin, using his meteoric rise to highlight the hope that anyone from any background can succeed in life through hard graft and determination. In short, the American dream is alive and well.

New research published yesterday shows that students who want to get a good job that pays well should apply to an institution belonging to the Russell Group or 1994 Group of universities.