I went to college in the early 80s. Dorm and frat parties served grain “punch” as well as keg beer. Grain punch was grain alcohol (190 proof) mixed with kool aid. Gross.
The drinking age was 21 but neighboring states were 18. We drank in the dorms pretty openly and were basically left alone. Apparently there were issues because two years after I left, a few organizations were kicked off campus for having the same types of parties that we attended.
One of the benefits of having 2 older brothers ( one who was in a fraternity)’ was that I knew not to drink punch at fraternity parties. I stuck to beer.
While Duke isn’t the only campus where heavy drinking among undergrads is an issue, the severity can vary greatly depending on campus culture. As a consequence, saying “it happens everywhere” is quite misleading.
Incidentally, Boston College has been known as one of the colleges for having campus cultures of heavy drinking. In fact, this notoriety was one major reason during my HS years why many parents at my NYC public magnet…including some Catholics tried their utmost to discourage their kids to consider/apply to BC or other colleges with similar campus culture reputations.
Within my extended family, one aunt & uncle were relieved after their D(started undergrad in the early part of this decade) turned down BC for a Top 15 LAC* which doesn’t have a campus culture of heavy drinking. The rest of the extended family wondered why she bothered to apply to BC considering it stuck out as the only school on her list with big sports/party/heavy drinking campus culture.
@romanigypsyeyes Just curious, what studies have you looked at? Maybe the last 50 years has been an era of hook up culture, maybe not but it is definitely a thing today (maybe their samples are not representative of a true college population?). There are apps that facilitate this. If you really think kids use tinder to find dating partners that’s a very false belief, at least among the college students I’ve talked to/hung out with (and on anonymous social media apps like yik yak where people are more open to discussing this type of stuff).
The fact that there are apps that facilitate this just means that it’s easier now. The people who were never interested in hooking up don’t use those apps. The people who are interested – they would have hooked up years ago, too, they just had to do so in a different fashion. Going to bars and going home with somebody is not newly invented behavior.
@Pizzagirl and neither is drinking. I mentioned that drinking is popular because of the hookup culture, but I never said that the hookup culture is limited only to kids today (and if I did then I expressed the wrong idea). Also my comment to romanigypsyeyes is to explain why at least today there is a hookup culture (she also said something about how the numbers are the same so I wanted to see where she got the numbers from)
I can’t comment on what happened 50 years ago, I wasn’t alive then. That’s why I talk only about what happens these days at college. Someone mentioned something about greek life and drinking and how greek life perpetuates a drinking culture. I was giving them a different perspective because greek life and even partying aren’t the (only) reasons kids drink in college. Getting rid of those two does nothing
The drinking age was raised in large part due to a very successful campaign by MADD. I haven’t done the research myself, but I am going to guess that DUIs are down in places where Uber and Lyft are readily available and affordable. I was a 17-year-old college freshman when the drinking age was raised to 21. Not being allowed to legally drink for the majority of my time in college was ridiculous. We know the stats on binge drinking. And we also know that raising the age to 21 hasn’t stopped underage drinking. If DUIs are decreasing, I think the drinking age should be revisited.
As the various threads about sexual misconduct and how authorities (police, DAs, university administrations) handle (or mishandle) such incidents discuss, trying for quick potentially sexual hookups while drunk is more likely to lead to various kinds of trouble.
“As the various threads about sexual misconduct and how authorities (police, DAs, university administrations) handle (or mishandle) such incidents discuss, trying for quick potentially sexual hookups while drunk is more likely to lead to various kinds of trouble.”
Thanks for stating the obvious. Gosh, if it weren’t for CC threads, no one would have ever figured out that drunk plus hookup was fraught with trouble.
We called them one night stands and we had to arrange them in an analog fashion, but it was hooking up. Every generation likes to think they invented this stuff…
Exactly. Please, stop thinking that this is new behavior. It’s just easier to facilitate with cell phones and apps, that’s all. The desire for 18 - 21 yo’s to be instantly attracted to and want to fool around with members of the opposite sex is nothing new, at all.
No one said it was new (read: I never said it was new at least like I said it wasn’t the intent), maybe you should reread my posts and yes reread mine because afaik I’m the one you’re addressing this to.
Gosh, if it weren’t for CC threads I wouldn’t know to make sure every one of my posts are ready to be published in a peer reviewed journal and thoroughly reread 1000 times to make sure every word is perfectly used and can’t be attacked
Nothing new at all. Just the internets to spread the stories compared to a generation ago. In our house, I have a talk with our high school age kids about alcohol. We are not tee-totallers, and I have a real problem particularly with 18 year olds being able to be drafted and not being able to have a beer responsibly. I like the fact that all of our kids have had some experience (not all good…) with alcohol before college. Rules are simple: no hard alcohol, no ‘shots’, no drinking games, and absolutely no driving after even a sip of alcohol. All easily understood and explained. No open parties at our house, and I talk to any parents of friends that are over and get their opinion on this. Is it perfect…no.
My city has had Uber for a little over a year, and a few weeks ago there was an article in the local paper saying that DUI arrests are down and Uber is likely a factor. About a 20% decline I think