<p>I commute for a reason. I want no part of dorm life. I've heard enough about it and it's all fighting, sex, and alcohol.</p>
<p>So I live at home (for free) where I don't have to worry about that stuff. I'm rarely on campus anyway unless I have class or am working out or attending a meeting (either the weekly Bible study I'm in or one of the study sessions that I host).</p>
<p>In general, I am not too fond of college students. Most of my activities are church/music related and I'm mostly with senior citizens there, who I get along very well with. Of the college students I'm close to, most are either old friends from high school who share my values or are people I've met at the Bible study. I also work with older people at my job (I'm the youngest there) and after playing in a recreation baseball league for years am probably going to be a coach for 2007, probably alongside older individuals helping young children with disabilities in a special league made just for them.</p>
<p>I've never drank, never had sex, and never smoked/done drugs. I credit my mom, my grandparents, my ministers, and my middle school DARE officer for the education they gave me in my younger days to make me a solid human being now.</p>
<p>My secret? I'm too preoccupied with other things to really care about what a stereotypical college student is like. Namely, baseball and church eat up a lot of my time.</p>
<p>Also, I'm a big time conservative. No liberal community for me, thank you.</p>
<p>I'm going into elementary ed for a number of reasons. First, I've always wanted to be a teacher. Second, I want to prepare the kids for the future with reading/math/etc. Finally, I want to be the "catcher" for these kids--the one who can "catch" them if they're falling (read "The Catcher in the Rye" to understand this reference--it's cited in my philosophy of education).</p>
<p>
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I've heard enough about it and it's all fighting, sex, and alcohol.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Unless UCLA is some sort of anomaly, this statement is untrue...or at least exaggerated. My dorm experience at UCLA was tame, quiet, and full of respect for everyone's boundaries.</p>
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I've heard enough about it and it's all fighting, sex, and alcohol.
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If you are depending only on what you have heard, I don't think you can make statements such as this one. You can't know what dorm life is all about. My dorm is friendly and calm. People study, watch sports and shows on TV, and hang out, for the most part. </p>
<p>
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I've never drank, never had sex, and never smoked/done drugs. I credit my mom, my grandparents, my ministers, and my middle school DARE officer for the education they gave me in my younger days to make me a solid human being now.
[/quote]
I also argue your implication that people who have drank, smoked, or had sex are not "solid human beings." Just because you have decided not to participate in those activities should not automatically condemn all who have made other decisions. Attitudes like this are pretentious and unnecessary.</p>
<p>
[quote]
In general, I am not too fond of college students. Most of my activities are church/music related and I'm mostly with senior citizens there, who I get along very well with. Of the college students I'm close to, most are either old friends from high school who share my values or are people I've met at the Bible study.
[/quote]
I think that getting along with people, and especially peers, is an important skill in life. I have a lot of good friends with important opinions that directly conflict with my own, but we respect each other's choices and opinions and get along fine. As an adult you will regularly be with people with whom you disagree, and you will have to work with and alongside them. To get along well in life, you need to be able to relate to and work with a variety of people who live life differently than you do.</p>
<p>For various reasons, people are generally completely convinced that residential college is the best way to go, and nothing is going to ever change their minds.</p>
<p>But perhaps if you called a Martian down, he or she might look at it and say, "What, are you nuts?!"</p>
<p>One of Brown's major draws is the option to take many courses pass fail and the fact that it has no requirements. I think that this may attract a certain kind of student who is looking for more freedom and one who has the self-confidence to<br>
make their own academic decisions. This attitude may filter over to the social realm. Brown is considered to be the most mellow and least academically stressful schools in the top tier. I am not at all negative about Brown, I think its great for the right student, one who is mature and focused. Indeed the college officer we heard emphasized this aspect of the college and discouraged those needing more direction. I know many wonderful, moral
grad of Brown; it probably is more of a party school than some others but its also not Animal House. You have to really trust your daughter, her character is largely formed. Does she want to go to Brown? The best way to assess any school is to do an overnight and get a feel for the nightlife!</p>
I agree that this is probably what typically happens. If a student has been dying to try a more adventurous lifestyle, he/she will find a way in college. If they have been taught certain values and/or standards, they'll probably find a group of similar friends.</p>
<p>As far as the question of "morality" I agree with HImom and Cangel. Having some standards regarding appropriate behavior is not necessarily judgemental. But don't we all judge the behavior of others anyway? Those who see nothing wrong with casual sex, excessive drinking etc will judge those who think it's distasteful as being narrow-minded or provincial. I'm not naive, and I typically don't care about what others do unless it affects me or my family, but I do think some behaviors are hedonistic. I don't think it's all that rare for people to think that casual sex (hookups) is not the kind of behavior we'd like to see our kids involved in. And it's also not true that all of the parents on CC engaged in excessive drinking, drug use, or 'hookups' in college. I don't think there's anything wrong in having personally defined standards, and trying to find a college which supports those standards for our kids.</p>
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The best way to assess any school is to do an overnight and get a feel for the nightlife!
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</p>
<p>While an overnight is probably better than nothing, a LOT depends on the host/hostess. Your senior will most likely get stuck doing whatever activity the host is doing. So it is pretty much luck of the draw.</p>
<p>To me the biggest difference from "my day" is that back then even when people were having sex, they didn't admit it. I had many female friends who insisted they hadn't gone "all the way" and, whoops, a few pregnancies busted THAT lie! It seemed more important back then to not be a "slut". That seems to be used as a term of endearment in some college circles these days. I am relieved that my daughter has tended to having one serious boyfriend at a time and they tend to last awhile. My son is a different story. I suspect he is a "slut". Not much I can do about it, either.</p>
<p>Okay, YIKES. I hope this article is a distortion of the facts. I don't know anything about this paper or the reporter, and I'm far from prudish when it comes to the goings ons on college campuses, but it sure caught my attention.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Famed as a hotbed of debate over academic freedom, New York's most elite school is also a playpen for sexual hijinks, sophomoric antics and the wacky indulgences of the children of the rich.
<p>the consensus is that is exaggerates the goings on of a very small subset who don't seem to be in the mainstream (my clueless S sure doesn't seem aware of any of it, but then he spent his first two years with one girlfriend, and in the aftermath of that, has thrown himself into schoolwork and cards).</p>
<p>The consensus is also, that, for better or worse, there is no central social life at Columbia, but rather lots of little separate ones, so there is no dominant pattern to either join in with or avoid.</p>
<p>Overall, I think that's true of most schools. I myself would most want to avoid the ones where the big, school-encompassing party scene is prevalent, because if you are trying to avoid it, that will be more noticeable and will leave you less options. (My D started at one such school). Brown and Columbia, as well as my D's transfer school which is the same as Marite's S1's, have more of a live and let live ethic, so whatever some folks might be doing, there's much less pressure to be also doing that, and many more venues for other choices.</p>
<p>Silly, cheap-shot "crazy kids" article, a perennial for slow news days.</p>
<p>There were maybe two things in that article that you couldn't find on almost any college campus: a public S&M student group (which seemed to involve maybe 20 people), and the under-watched student TV station broadcasting 5 minutes of hardcore porn, once. Big deal. And to think they use tax-free bonds to renovate the dorms where such hijinks occur!</p>
<p>I loved the line about naked parties, to the effect that they pretend that it's not about sex, but they don't entirely succeed. It was a perfect description of every fully clothed party I attended from middle school through my 20s.</p>
<p>curiousmom, I do think kids are a lot more willing to experiment with sex now than they were in our era, but you mentioned you graduated in 1986, and AIDS was still striking terror into anyone who was sexually active in the '80s - there was still a lot of misinformation about how it transmitted - so our era might be an anomaly. </p>
<p>I feel confident about my D's moral compass. It's interesting to me. I was raised in a very strict Catholic household - I was FORBIDDEN to have boyfriends, and even some of my girl friends were forbidden - which didn't stop me from having boyfriends or hanging out with the friends my parents didn't like. And I was ill-prepared for making good choices once I did go to college - I didn't drink or use drugs, primarily because I have an alcoholic parent, but I did become sexually active and got pregnant at 18. (I didn't know that antibiotics could render the pill ineffective).</p>
<p>After the way I grew up, I felt very strongly that forbidding your kids is fairly useless unless they are under your thumb 24/7, so the best thing to do is arm your children with the knowledge they need to make good decisions. </p>
<p>D is very anti-drug from the personal experience of seeing a friend's life fall apart after he started using - he's now a high school drop-out. I encouraged her to listen to her own conscience about sex - that she would know when the time was right. But I also strongly endorse waiting until you are in a position to handle any of the consequences of sexual activity - disease, pregnancy, plus all the emotional components. We also have great communication, so I know what's going on in her life, and in order to have that, she has to trust that I am not there to judge but to guide. </p>
<p>That works great for her. I have a feeling my second child will require a slightly more authoritarian approach, but we're feeling our way.</p>
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But I also strongly endorse waiting until you are in a position to handle any of the consequences of sexual activity - disease, pregnancy, plus all the emotional components.
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In my mind, this is the OPPOSITE of casual sex, and seems to be a sensible approach.</p>
<p>I was just listening to "Fresh Air" and Terry Gross was talking to the author of "Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture", who felt she was observing a lot of young women these days turning themselves into sexual objects and then calling it powerful and liberating because they chose to do it...I guess. I also read an article in "Rolling Stone" after the lax debacle that I found disturbing, suggesting that a lot of young women at Duke were allowing young men to treat them very badly. I'm sure no one would suggest that all young women or all Duke students are acting like this, but I hope it's not a trend. On the other hand, alarmists have been saying "our young people are going to the dogs" for thousands of years and yet the teenagers and young adults I know are all responsible and respectful. Am I stuck in some parallel universe?</p>
<p>I understand people being wary of a campus culture that has been described as Gomorrah- but I would also say- don't believe everything you hear.
For example- my daughters school in some circles has a reputation for sex/drugs/ and wild behavior.( when they heard she was going to attend- several of * my peers* said they had wanted to attend in the 70s- but their grandparents/parents wouldn't let them because it was full of Commies/hippies/wierdos- they got a lot of mileage out of Gary Snyder- being an alum- * Jack Kerouac buddy & winner of Pulitzer for his poetry* )</p>
<p>While that exists I am quite confident- as it does in every school to some extent including the most restrictive- that was not a strong consideration of criteria when we were looking at schools.</p>
<p>She wanted a school with great academics- that was small enough that social circles overlapped & where she had a lot of opportunity to participate in the campus community as well as enjoy the surrounding area.</p>
<p>She did opt to stay in a substance free dorm for three years- its true.
Not so much because she didn't want to associate with students who chose to indulge, but for several personal reasons ( she has ADD and needs quiet to study- she has asthma and didn't want to be in a dorm with people that smoked & she has genetic risk factors for addictive behavior)</p>
<p>If we had known that the school was going to give her a single room, I don't believe she would have opted for a subfree dorm, as the single room takes care of a lot of our concerns.
She took a year off before college- and even though she is not a risk taker anyway- this also added to her mature outlook and confidence that she would not be pulled into the atypical freshman response of* OMG I have noparents to watch me!*</p>
<p>My youngest was 11 when her sister began college & I was very comfortable having her stay over the years on campus for days at a time.
While there are certain students who embrace and enjoy the reputation ( hung onto from the 60s I believe) of being the place that has blotter acid in pinatas- I actually found the student behavior to be very tame( as students are much more likely to spend weekends in the library rather than making fake Ids), and certainly not as extreme as what you might see in some high schools or even middle schools.</p>
<p>I really don't want to paint schools that have Greeks as being party schools-
but it does have to be mentioned I guess even though it has been overstated, that schools that are larger, and have a larger group of ( in numbers- not percentage) students who indulge in inappropriate behavior are more likely to get into the newspaper and possibly even attract other students who think that sort of behavior is exciting.</p>
<p>But to cloister yourself away from participating in campus life because you have heard that it is full of immoral behavior is really selling yourself and your peers short.
Notice I am not saying that anyone should change their values- not at all. But judge not? Dont believe everything you hear- see for yourself
I understand that there are those who really are afraid of new ideas & being exposed to those who think differently & have different values and backgrounds- but isn't that what college is all about?
exposing yourself to new perspectives?</p>
<p>"suggesting that a lot of young women at Duke were allowing young men to treat them very badly."</p>
<p>I don't doubt that they are. But in that article and elsewhere, authors seem to assume that girls weren't being treated equally badly in the days of going steady and early marriages. There seems to be an implication that commitment is the sum total of what girls want, or ought to want, or what makes girls happy. Just because the relationship was longer, or the guy married the girl, doesn't mean that girls weren't putting up with all kinds of crap. This is just a different kind of crap. That change of crap is a story worth telling, but the allegation that women are all of a sudden swallowing mistreatment from men is BS IMHO. The fathers and grandfathers of today's jerks were jerks, too, and college girls clung to them anyway, because you were yesterday's news if you graduated without a ring. That is, at best, a wash compared with the flavor of crap Duke women are tolerating today.</p>