Starting college is not an easy time for anyone, but it's particularly hard when you don't want to be there in the first place. Such is this case for Beca (Anna Kendrick), a freshman who finds herself attending Barden College pretty much against her will. Beca is a budding DJ and producer who wants to go to L.A. to try to break into the music industry, but her father, who is a professor at Barden, insists that she has to get an education first. The two come to an agreement, albeit one that is both so slight as to be unimportant yet to convoluted to ignore. If Beca really makes a go of it and tries to have the true college experience, if she joins clubs, makes friends and actually tries to enjoy herself, but winds up deciding that it isn't for her, then she can drop out and go to L.A. The only problem is that she actually needs to make that effort in the first place.