Home Schooling.
Minimalism is more important than knowledge.
Going to university in The Sims 3 was weird. Time in the base neighbourhood stood still while you were there. Indeed, you were miraculously endowed with an entirely new Life Stage, during which to throw juice keg parties, hassle nerds and make street art, or whatever. You were also temporarily sterilised, presumably because it would be too confusing to give birth to a baby who appeared at home, with a live-in nanny and who would still be a newborn when you (eventually) returned. It’s not like anyone ever got knocked up while studying, right?
While we’re on weirdness, married students couldn’t meet with their spouses but they could talk to them via phone, despite their implied state of suspended animation. Perhaps all of this was to depict a hyper-focus on study, yet the only study object I can remember is a skeleton upon which you could “bone up on anatomy”, presumably because your husband wasn’t having sex with you, while his ear was pressed infinitely to the phone. Luckily, the Sims 4’s University Life attempts to abolish some of this weirdness. And yet, it’s not without its own idiosyncrasies, either.
As the kind of player who likes a challenge, the first thing I did after enrolling at Britchester University was to get my Sim pregnant by a passing man. She was living at home due to the horrendously slow ‘fastest’ setting in the dorm (as a result of NPCs pranking each other all night) and the fact you can’t cook, having to actually attend a buffet at specific times of day. I couldn’t be less interested in twice-daily loading screens just to queue up to get free smashed avo on toast and no cooking skill points, to boot.
So, yes. She had a (part time) job flipping burgers, a different kind of bun in the oven and twelve courses to complete. That’s classes to attend, presentations to perfect, papers to write, exams to cram for and (soon enough) a toddler to micromanage, too. I loved how difficult this was. It was a genuine struggle. Come Graduation Day, after her not-elongated Young Adult Life Stage was nearly exhausted,
I was excited. What might the reward be for my hard work? Seriously? She became exactly as Happy (+2) as when she changed into clean clothes from the drier, earlier in the day.
Well, there’s also a kickstart to a related career, significant skill development and a piece of paper to hang on the wall, but studying in The Sims 4 feels like a sacrifice. My Sim and her child could hardly afford any of the expensive, moodlet-granting paraphernalia my sims usually accrue, thanks to rapid career advancement; fancy toilets and fridges. Interestingly, I also purchased Tiny Living at the same time, in which you’re given objects (both cheap and not) that combine beds, bookshelves, TVs and so on.
I once heard an allegory for having a baby that involved running at, and smashing through, a plate glass window. It is a one-way journey, involving pain, mess and a lengthy, expensive process to rebuild normalcy. I mean, I didn’t experience that when I had babies, in real life. I love being a mum. It’s probably more of an apt metaphor for Tiny Living, though. Prior to this expansion pack, my legacy families had massive, detailed houses, on stilts in the ocean, multi-story, and so on.
Can’t I still spend all of those hard earned simoleons on basements full of souvenirs from Selvadorada, the Sims’ jungle location? Oh, hell no. The best I’ll be able to do, from this point onwards, is stack the most expensive washing machines on top of the most expensive toilets, possibly outside. Why? Tiny houses buff skills; when your floor plan is less than 64 tiles. In fact, I went to Carl’s guide to check this and he’s written, “Doubles skill gains on this lot. You read that correctly.” Right? Right, Carl?
So my Sim and her child, despite the stress of uni, part time employment and the ridiculousness of the toilet constantly breaking, got smart fast. Even maxing the toddler’s skills was a breeze, in a tiny house. Then, of course, she became a child with skill-boosting reward traits, then a teen with even more skill-boosting reward traits, then an adult who didn’t need to go to university in the slightest, but who could breeze through university, while racing through an actual career, as I usually would.
Tiny Living’s skill boost has broken the game, while also making a more realistic university expansion playable. Although I moved my entire neighbourhood into tiny houses immediately, there may be a point where this first graduating Sim can retire into an abandoned giant house. Haha. No. I’m joking, of course. She’s busy raising her daughter’s children thanks to maxing out parenting skill in, like, two days. The size of my Sim’s house made her smarter than a uni degree. It’s that kind of game.