The Hawk

Issue date: 9/19/07 Section: Features

More than one fifth of college students are "alcohol abusers."

College students drink. There is nothing surprising about that fact. They have been since the Middle Ages, when commentators noted drinking at Europe's first universities. Drinking and partying have been standard parts of the collegiate experience for generations, and, in that regard, little has changed since collegiate life began.

However, the dynamic has changed. A March 2007 report by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) indicated that 68 percent of college students drink, showing that drinking and partying have come to play a central role in the collegiate social scene. The same report stated that, during a two week test period, 40 percent of students said that they had binge drank at least once and that 22.8 percent of students reported having binge drank three or more times.

As such, not only has drinking become central to collegiate social life, but also increasingly acceptable and normal. Coupled with media images and popular portrayals of college, drinking and partying have essentially become expectations of college life.

At St. Joe's, these expectations, and their fulfillment, are quite apparent. Parties are not difficult to find, nor is it much of a challenge to obtain alcohol. Even so, one might be tempted to think that it is hard for a new student, who has just arrived on campus and has no knowledge of the social scene, to enter the party culture.

The truth is that it is not. Since partying has become such a pervasive aspect of the social scene at St. Joe's, and at almost every other university in the country, there are numerous avenues by which new students may be introduced into the party culture. Many freshmen are able to find parties on their first night on campus, and if not, are certainly able to do so by their first weekend.

A major source of the ease by which students enter the St. Joe's party culture is the fact that many students are from Philadelphia and the greater Philadelphia/New Jersey area. Since a large number of students hail from these parts, many already know at least one other student, if not more, when they arrive at the university. This in turn facilitates the passing of information about parties, and many freshmen interviewed reported that they learn about parties from people that they already knew who they could contact about finding a party.

Continued...

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