When I graduated from high school, the last column I wrote for the Wheeling High School Spokesman was a look at the movies that I thought best summed up what high school was really about. Of course, few movies accurately capture the high school experience, so the column was a bit far-fetched.

The same problem arises when talking about college movies. The seminal college classic is “National Lampoon’s Animal House,” a film that bears absolutely no resemblance to my college experience, probably because A) I was never in a fraternity and B) I am not John Belushi. There are tons of movies like “Animal House” that depict the fantasy college experience that few of us actually have: “Revenge of the Nerds,” “PCU,” “Back to School” and so on.

There is one college movie that at least seems somewhat realistic, and that is the little seen 1996 film, “Glory Daze,” starring Alyssa Milano, “Third Rock from the Sun’s” French Stewart and big-ass movie star Ben Affleck in what I think is his finest role.

“Glory Daze” isn’t about fraternity pledges, computer geeks, druggies or 60-year-old men going back to college to reclaim the glory of their youth. “Glory Daze” is about us regular guys-Joe College, if you will-living out their last days before graduation at UC-Santa Cruz. It’s about senioritis, about “fighting against the dying of the light” (as Affleck says in the film), blossoming into a “real person” and discovering your identity. It’s also unremittingly funny.

Affleck plays Jack, “happy-go-f***in’-lucky as the next guy” in the character’s words, a skateboarding punker with a bad haircut who talks his housemates into staying around Santa Cruz for a year after graduation. Jack serves as the film’s narrator and the focus of much of its attention, and Affleck plays him wonderfully. Jack has precisely the kind of pessimistic, angry attitude that I think a lot of us get near the end of our college careers, especially those of us like me who still don’t know what they’re going to do. Jack doesn’t know what he wants to do after graduation, and that causes the rift between he and his parents about halfway through the film.

“Glory Daze” was written and directed by Rich Wilkes, who had previously written the less-than-impressive Brendan Fraser vehicle “Airheads.” Wilkes triumphs here, despite the near absence of a budget and the casting of unknown actors in some of the lead parts. But Wilkes apparently has made a lot of friends in the industry somehow, because there are small appearances in the film by Fraser, Matt Damon, Matthew McConaughey and “King of Queens” star Leah Remini.

What “Glory Daze” gets right are the mixed emotions we all have about college. At one point, Jack confides to his ex-girlfriend that he’s already bored with life. “I’m 22 years old … where’s all the funny sh*t?” Jack seems to have distaste for college, yet he’s the one more than any other character in the film who is clinging onto it for dear life.

That’s exactly how I feel in these last days before I graduate. Yeah, I’m tired of classes and RAs and rules and teachers and working at the Daily Eastern News, but what the hell am I going to do without all those things? What am I going to do without Weller Hall and the collection of people who live there? What am I going to do without this little column every other week? What am I going to do without Marty’s, and house party performances by Turtle Triumph and Thomas Hall late night pizza?

I’ll go home, that’s what I’ll do, and look back on the last four years of my life as those that made the biggest difference, that made me who I am, that helped me get closer to being the person I want to be.

As Jack writes on a window at “Glory Daze’s” conclusion, “Angst for the memories.” And thanks for reading.