NBC’s new show “Community” offers us a view into the world of a fictitious community college and what happens during an average day. The show centers around a colorful cast of characters including a man who made a fortune in the moist towelette business, a man with a law degree that is discovered to be bogus, a guy reluctant to join the family falafel business, and a woman trying to find her way after a marriage gone awry.

The reality is, this fictitious character assortment could very well describe the ethnically and socially diverse student body at De Anza College.

In an article on NPR.org, series creator Dan Harmon said that he had the idea for the show based on his real-life experiences in community college.

“There was a pregnant teenage girl sitting next to me studying biology, and on the other side of me was a Vietnam vet,” Harmon said in the article.

How many of us can share in Harmon’s view, when set against our time here at De Anza? No matter the class or the time of day, you see and meet people from all different walks of life, all here to enrich their lives for professional and personal reasons. It may not be immediately apparent, but these people have an effect on us.

Whether it is shared life experiences, business networking, or friendship, the community college setting gives students a humanizing personal interaction unique to our learning environment.

The appearance of “Community” on network television shows the social prevalence of community college attendance.

Now that network writers are making jokes about community college, we see that community college students are not a fringe population. Slowly, we are becoming the norm.