<p>I find interesting the proportion of CC posters (or their children) who are not partiers. Not just from this thread, but many others as well. Either it’s a very straightlaced crowd, or a crowd in denial.</p>
<p>I think my attitude is pretty typical of my alma mater (one reason I felt so at home there). Most people there will have a drink or three. Many students will drink beyond their capabilities at least once. But someone who repeatedly gets so drunk that he pukes on the floor in a shared bathroom and doesn’t attempt to clean it up or apologize is a selfish a$$ and treated as such. No one else is expected to live in vomit.</p>
<p>I visited an excellent LAC and saw vomit-absorber dispensers in the dorm hallways. Not the school for me.</p>
<p>Also Wiggle, many of them seem to be like minded on this issue. not saying there is not a problem but i think everyone needs to calm down.</p>
<p>
Perhaps a little of both, but there’s also a real generation gap here, I think. I was (and to some degree still am) a partier. But when I was in college, being a partier did not mean routinely drinking till you puked. That was actually considered embarrassing. The point was–as Jane Austen puts it–to elevate our spirits, not to confuse our intellects. Of course we often crossed that line, but not usually to the point of illness or incapacity; that was rare and, if repeated, recognized as a problem.</p>
<p>EDIT: Or, what Hanna said.</p>
<p>" more inexperienced and strict their high school experience the more likely the kid was to “go nuts”, (drinking and getting high to the point of incapacitation)"</p>
<p>Disagree…well, I don’t know about the “strict” part, but I know my D and several of her friends did not drink in HS, and did not go “crazy”. ( Two go to Liberty…but my D is at Duke, do… ) My “N” is just ten or so, but I think when the subject came up before, there was some research data to support it. By that I mean, NOT drinking in high school does not increase your risk of abusing alcohol in college. In fact, if the research is to be believed, the reverse is true.</p>
<p>Steps off soapbox…</p>
<p>BTW, when I went to college it was all about pot, and it was MUCH neater.</p>
<p>Nightchef, I don’t think there’s a generation gap here…there’s a reality gap.</p>
<p>I have no idea what you mean, Wiggle. Can you elaborate?</p>
<p>Upon thinking about my kids’ experiences, I think that the distinguishing characteristic of the “freshmen gone wild” might be their home towns (perhaps in addition to parental strictness.) There are quite a few freshmen I know of who had the attitude that they were getting out of their small towns and were going to live it up in the big city, where ever that city may be. Smalltown kids came to my medium-sized city and couldn’t wait to do every crazy thing available here. Kids from my area who moved to bigger cities felt exactly the same way. So, perhaps instead of rebellion, the contributing factor might be impatience to engage in new experiences. (Thus, the abundance of new tattoos and body piercings in D’s freshman class.)</p>
<p>"Wiggle. Can you elaborate? "</p>
<p>This usually means, those who see it differently don’t know what’s REALLY going on.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>perhaps–sadly enough-- I am NOT too old to tell you this is too EASY.
A drink 1 oz of alcohol in a coke, etc… is easily consumed --and a vodka/tonic etc…same thing.</p>
<p>For a teen- light body weight and young–it takes no time at all to consume enough to be drunk AND in short order they can consume far more than they realize–and when the effects hit all of a sudden…! yikes
Also grain alcohol is popular–which is really heavy.
If its a keg, “ladies lock up”, dime drafts, quarter long necks…etc etc…
College students can and do consume alot…</p>
<p>It is miserable to be a in a dorm of partiers and after 1st semester grades (probation), it will take a second semeter to flunk out UNLESS the parents pull the kids out first (unlikely)
So this is dorm life …
would be interesting to know which school this is/and their policies.</p>
<p>4-5 drinks in an hour can be as simple as two jack and cokes, because often drinks at college are made strong or if you are playing drinking games you can easily consume 12 drinks in an hour</p>
<p>what is “ladies lock up”?</p>
<p>“Either it’s a very straightlaced crowd, or a crowd in denial.”</p>
<p>Or or a crowd “in recovery”!</p>
<p>The difference between the scene at my college and the one some of you are describing can be summed up in an aphorism: we drank to have fun, you guys drink to drink. </p>
<p>Why would you ever consume 10 drinks in an hour? To prove that you can still stand at the end of it? As Amy Poehler and Seth Myers would say, “REALLY?!?”</p>
<p>at my school we drink to have fun and we just drink a lot. i mean 10 drinks for us in one night is nothing. i think the average person at my school requires about 8 drinks to be tipsy.</p>
<p>I live in Ann Arbor. Every August and every football Saturday is a clear reminder of underage drinking. The first few weeks of school the local news is filled with a tally of MIP counts, (minors in possession). Worse still, take a stroll down State Street before a football game; if parents could witness what their precious, conservative innocents were doing they most likely would have a life ending heart attack. </p>
<p>The streets are normally patrolled by a highly visible police force. But if a policeman arrests one drinker, they, the violator and the cop, will be off the street for an hour filling out paper work while the remaining tens of thousands of students are roaming with even less supervision. As a taxpayer in a town that is struggling to keep it’s high school sports team funded and it’s fire departments open, I have no interest in a policeman wasting his street time doing paperwork for a poorly parented undergraduate.</p>
<p>Adults drink. College students drink. Underage college students drink. To expect anything different is not only naive but dangerous. If you don’t prepare your child to deal with the access and excess of alcohol at college you are taking a frighteningly stupid risk. Drinking in a college town is not about beer, it’s about hard liquor. The biggest problem among the underage crowd is “pre-gaming” - students getting their hands on alcohol, vodka or tequila, have 3 or 4 or 5 shots before heading out to parties, because their afraid they won’t be served, they go to a party, maybe get a beer but are already actually well on their way to blind drunk even though to the casual observer they’ve only had a couple. </p>
<p>Two problems come from this, first is the issue of alcohol poisoning. The “law and order” crowd insists that every underage drinker be written up with an MIP. The problem comes when friends find themselves with a dangerously drunk friend on their hands but refuse to take him to the emergency room for treatment for fear that they will be written up. Each year we come perilously close to some students dying of alcohol poisoning because of this rule. Personally I see no value in trading a few $25 fines for a 19-year old’s life.</p>
<p>The other problem is with young women. They are more likely and more susceptible to the effects of pre-gaming. More than a few pre-game, go to a party, get a beer and wake up later having passed out. It’s unclear how many agree to the “hook-ups” with the opposite sex and how many happen simply because two drunk undergrads get together.</p>
<p>I am not trying to paint Michigan as some Sodom & Gomorrah, in fact the level of drinking at UM is lower than many of it’s Big 10 brethren. My point is, any parent who doesn’t teach their child to handle themselves with and around alcohol is simply asking for trouble, potentially deadly trouble. Feel free to blame the college, the authorities and “society”, but it’s your kid; pretend that drinking and partying doesn’t and shouldn’t exist, but I’m sending my kids in prepared for battle with something more than platitudes and a stern lecture.</p>
<p>excellent post vince, as a college student i agree with the last paragraph. my parents had always been open and “liberal” with drinking. i knew about drinking and had experienced prior to college. now that is not to say i havent gone crazy or gotten sick, but that has only been a few times and more of just losing control in my fun rather than drinking to get sick.</p>
<p>I suspect there are many students who have been pretty good about not drinking in high school Then all of the sudden they are off to college, without fears of parent punishment or concerns about drinking/driving. So now in the beginning of college they experiment, sometimes too much.</p>
<p>Ah, and if there is spiked punch at a frat party… beware. Freshman (especially lightweight girls who didn’t drink in high school) can get sick with just a glass or two. Not my favorite college memory…</p>
<p>no offense but it probably was not spiked just your naivety assuming it was punch. and they are made strong, as much as 1 to 1 depending on the alcohol used.</p>
<p>“The “law and order” crowd insists that every underage drinker be written up with an MIP.”</p>
<p>" but I’m sending my kids in prepared for battle with something more than platitudes and a stern lecture"</p>
<p>I don’t understand these two statements. Maybe you have defined the first. What is the “preparation”?</p>
<p>How does one “teach their child to handle themselves with and around alcohol is simply asking for trouble,”, besides the stuff they’ve learned from you over a lifetime and the stuff in alcohol.edu? Maybe you mean have them drink at home. What if your kid doesn’t have my interest in drinking. Would you encourage them? Just asking. What if you, as a parent, don’t drink? Maybe for good reason. </p>
<p>My kid lectured me, about not lecturing her. Whatever. She’s a junior now, and managing “it” better them I ever did.</p>
<p>And for the record, this has been discussed as much as affirmative action.</p>
<p>I swear, this forum is like “Groundhog Day” sometimes.</p>