I don’t party too often; usually I just hang out with friends or go to the occasional club social or whatever. Most of my friends either don’t party or are over 21, so the tend to go to bars. But I’ve always wanted to have just one semester where I party every week, just to get it out of my system. I feel like because I don’t party that much that I’m missing out on the college experience (I’m a junior btw). I know partying isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be, but I still feel that I need to experience it in order to get it out of my head and to push outside of my comfort zones. What do I do?
Do I correctly assume that you want to stay in school during your party semester? I think you need to think about implications of this idea. Do you plan to remain enrolled? Are you confident you can maintain progress in your graduation plan, fulfill requirements with acceptable grades, attend class and take tests and fulfill course demands, or earn a semester GPA that compromises your current average? If I were a parent expected to pay for this, I would certainly minimize my monetary contribution to your college experience. Personally I don’t see how a semester of partying as a means expanding your comfort zone. Indeed, what comfort zone are you talking about? Perhaps partying over a summer break would be better.
Personally, I don’t see how this plan would add to your life or how you keep up with your obligations? Further, you are not the only one involved. For example what if you earned a DUI or even injured yourself or someone else? Personally, I don’t think your idea has much merit as you mature into adulthood or think partying is a useful goal in your growth.
The purpose of going to college is to earn a degree. Being able to study full time for four years is a privelege, a luxury, and what is really the college experience. If you must party every weekend to feel like you have gotten your “college experience,” noone is stopping you, but know that there may be consequences, some negative.
Also having friends and activities to do on the weekend is what you want to have in college! How many posts are about people with no friends?
What do you mean by “partying”? What do you expect to happen? Do these parties exist?
Or are you taking societies view of college as partying…thinking Animal House is reality?
Partying in college is a lot of fun! On most campuses there’ll be multiple parties going on every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Sometimes there’ll even be parties on hump day! So availability of parties is not the issue -it’s making time for them. As a pumpkin, it can be hard to get to parties because it takes you so much longer to walk over than it does for people. But there are ways around this! I always ask my dormmates to Uber with me, and just set me down in the back seat. My favorite parties, unsurprisingly, happen around Halloween. My fraternity hosted a party on Friday and the turnout was great. The only danger is if you, like me, are a pumpkin and show up too early to a Halloween party, you might get mistaken for a decoration and end up with a carved and lacerated face. Beware! Timing is key!
I think if you feel like you HAVE to do this to get the “full college experience”, you aren’t doing it right. If you’ve had “something” in your system that you need to get out by committing an entire semester to weekly parties, wouldn’t it have already manifested itself? At the end of the day, you have to be you, in whatever form that takes. I don’t know that you’ll look back on your self-enforced party semester (with its requisite hangovers and possibly negative grade consequences) and fill fulfilled.
Yeah, maybe up your social a bit here and there, but if it’s not part of your DNA to be a major party animal for 3 months, I don’t think you can force it.
It’s mostly that I see photos of other people on FB having fun and hearing wild stories from my friends. Tbh I was just kinda bummed out that I didn’t get to go anywhere on Halloween; all my friends were either busy or not in the mood, or they were heading to the bar and couldn’t bring me (I’m 20 btw).
I just keep getting this nagging feeling that I’m not experiencing college life to the fullest that I can. I know college isn’t supposed to be one big party but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to have a little fun every now and then.
Just ask around about where the parties are and go.
Just go to parties on Saturday nights for the next few weekends. For those that are saying it’s going to affect your grades it really shouldn’t - if you’re only going once a week. Meet some people that go to parties and go! If you like it keep going. It’s a good idea to try it, be open-minded, so I actually agree with you that you may regret later not having tried it.
@EatMyShorts You can still go to parties every weekend even if your friends don’t want to go with you, but try the following:
- First, find out where the parties are and ask the people on your floor if they want to go with you.
- Make some new friends at parties so you can join them every weekend. Get their social media or number so you can ask them if they want to go to a party with you. You can also do other stuff with them as well.
I’ve done #2 before and it’s all about confidence. Go up to random people and introduce yourself because parties are all about meeting new people and having a great time. It’s not that hard to find people to party with. Just ask around and you’ll most likely find someone.
Even if some people say that partying isn’t everything, it isn’t. You just have to have a balance of work and fun. Party only on Friday and Saturday nights. During the weekend, I’d study and get some work done so you can keep up on your classes. Having 2 days off doesn’t mean a break from classes. You work during the day and have fun at night.