Cal?!! Most Californians I knew…especially relatives would feel the party school title would be much more appropriately applied to USC or if we’re restricting ourselves to UCs…UCLA, UCSB, etc.
And I felt UCLA had more of a relaxed party school type vibe while visiting its campus a decade ago compared with Cal which seemed much more intellectually/academically serious with a bit of hippie/punkish flair.
Ironically, despite all that, if I was just going by what I saw on the respective UC campuses, I’d actually have a hard time choosing which to attend as both appeal to me despite the fact Cal would seemingly fit my criteria on not having as much rah rah spirit/party vibe compared with UCLA.
I went to FSU. While there, it was voted the #1 party school in the nation. In my experience, the people who fared the worst in that environment were the ones who had been very sheltered, who had no prior experience with partying and then went wild once away from over-controlling parents or communities. They hadn’t yet learned how to navigate a drinking scene (how and when to say no, when to head home and get some sleep, how to make sure you stay with your group and everyone gets home safely, etc.) and were thrown right into the deep end to learn how to swim. I knew two preacher’s daughters who partied every night and flunked out after one year.
I had a great time at FSU, including being in a sorority, without doing very much drinking at all.
Also, I’m an attorney who has worked at BigLaw, and I have seen no correlation between being a successful attorney and being a “big partier.” Most of the time, BigLaw is working too hard to do much partying. Having good social skills – being able to make small talk, being charming, seeming confident – will definitely help. Rainmakers do their smoozing over dinners or games of golf with in-house counsel. The closest thing to a “party” they go to is a charity ball or a very civilized dinner party. Frankly, most of the drinking I see in the legal world is done alone (to manage stress) and is very unhealthy.
“the real issue isn’t whether your kid is a partier, but whether he/she is comfortable at a school where partying dominates the culture. You don’t have to party, of course, but if that is the main way people have fun, this may not be the best choice for a non-partier.”
Right. Miami of Ohio is a classic example of a rural, significantly Greek school that I might not recommend to a kid not into that scene. There are plenty of aspects I admire about the school, but it has a distinct flavor that’s not for everyone.
@GABaseballMom That’s right, I agree with all of that. I think you may have misinterpreted what I wrote. I said that partying in college helps develop good social skills. Also the people that you go out with when you’re young can become your clients and connections later. I never said that lawyers go out to wild house parties (though I’m sure some do).
If a person never goes out in undergrad, do you really think he will have the skills to “smooze” clients on the golf course and at dinner parties? Do you really think that someone who stays in their dorm room and watches a movie will have those skills? I don’t know any people like this.
“If a person never goes out in undergrad, do you really think he will have the skills to “smooze” clients on the golf course and at dinner parties? Do you really think that someone who stays in their dorm room and watches a movie will have those skills?”
Partying, defined here as drinking and partaking of drugs, and socializing are two separate things. Again, you oversimplify to fit your narrative. There are more choices than partying and staying in your dorm room and watching a movie. It’s not binary. One can develop social skills without going to frat or house parties. A college with less of a party atmosphere will likely have an environment with more non-partying social options and less social pressure to participate in partying.
If you don’t know people who don’t party but still have social skills, you need to expand your circle a bit.
Going out in undergrad does not have to involve partying. You can attend concerts, lectures given by guest speakers, dinners, sporting events, club outings, etc. Plenty of college students are quite successful without your definition of what it means to be “social.”
I agree with @doschicos that if you have never met people who don’t party but stil have excellent social skills, you need to expand your circle.
Carolinabrah seems unable to distinguish between drinking socially and getting drunk (aka what undergrads call partying) which makes me think he’s very young. Most successful college juniors are done with ’ house parties’ and have moved on to a small group of friends with whom they indeed mix alcohol and fun in a more adult manner than house parties (where I can’t imagine learning much useful for the business or adult world).
Alcohol and weed are a real risk for some students, and those dangers are in my opinion more important to the regular freshman than the risk of not developing social skills. @Hanna : do you consider Miami Ohio and Ohio University the same? Both have a reputation for partying, both have good business school, and they’re both in a rural area.
I do not feel that “partying” is a necessary way to achieve social skills. In fact, I feel it is used as a crutch to those who cannot socialize. Alcohol and drugs are used as the social lubricant for those who cannot socialize. Think of the big joke about white guys and dancing. It goes that white guys need a bit of liquid courage to get out there. Does this mean he is learning good dancing skills that can be done when he is sober? I doubt it. He will still need his liquid courage. The same is true for the life of the party guy. He will find he feels a bit awkward in a business social setting if he does not have booze. This will create lack of confidence that will harm him.
The best thing to do is “practice like you play”. You need to attend business social meetings while on campus to learn how. Playing beer pong does not equate to the same thing. Sorry. JMHO.
Partying is really good at learning how to hook up. But for life skills other than that? It is a stretch.
All of y’all are being rude and all of the assumptions being made about me are incorrect. I’m sorry that I have a different opinion and am not participating in the groupthink. Even if I am young, that just means I have a more up-to-date understanding of the college drinking/social scene than someone who has been removed from it for decades.
Another group who’d fare pretty badly are those who don’t like to party or have otherwise “matured early” in this one respect and regard the heavy drinking/partying cultures of “party schools” to be a rehash of behaviors/attitudes they had hoped would have been left behind in middle school or even kindergarten.
One friend likened that culture to “being put back into the romper room in kindergarten”. Great for those who love it…or at least tolerate it. Horrid for those who can’t or don’t feel it should be part of one’s vision of their own college experience/life.
And I personally never saw the point of drinking to the point of getting wasted and consequently acting like a buffoon/belligerently like I’ve seen on several such campuses while visiting friends or after college when I had the unfortunate experience of encountering such students/adults while living in a Boston area neighborhood after college.
Also, the few colleagues I knew who didn’t outgrow such antics in the workplace tended to not survive their probationary periods.
I graduated from a huge party school (Michigan State) only a few years ago. I am not “decades detached” but I have been out in the “real world” for a non-negligible amount of time.
No, partying isn’t necessary for success. Not even close. Being an extrovert and having well-developed social skills can be helpful in extroverted careers or places where you need to schmooze. But A- that isn’t every field and B- those can damn well be developed by other means. Personally, I developed them by working on a crisis line, in an IPV shelter, giving presentations on IPV and sexual health related topics, interning with a Senator, and so on. I was never one for partying and can count on one hand the number of times I was drunk in college.
You seriously overestimate the level of difficulty it takes to learn smoozing skills for most.
IME, most folks who weren’t “partiers” in college…including introverts can pick up such skills within a matter of months of even weeks. Not 4+ years of undergrad partying.
Also, while it is more difficulty for some introverts and those on the spectrum to pick up such skills, many do succeed like a younger HS classmate who is a successful attorney and an up-and-coming leader in several professional, political, and other organizations despite being on the spectrum and being exceedingly socially awkward during our HS years.
Funny part is I have gone to more such parties after college and drink more than I did while I was an undergrad. I personally mostly go for the people there and the music.
However, I don’t drink to the point of getting wasted and have no problems attending while turning down offers of alcoholic beverages from the gracious hosts who are very cool about it either way.
I also don’t regard it as anything more than one of many leisurely activities one pursues outside of work…not as a learning ground for learning how to socialize in a professional setting(ROTFLOL).
@carolinahbrahh I’m a college freshman since you think your youth means you can better explain the party scene to adults. What you said is honestly still inaccurate. You never said that partying in college helps kids “develop” good social skills, but you did say kids that didn’t party are “weird”. You also made the following statement that seems really weird considering you’re still in college: “If you’re going into any kind of non-academic profession, maybe excluding doctors too, you need to be able to party if you want to make it anywhere. Every successful lawyer, businessman, accountant, you name it parties or has partied in the past. That’s how you meet your clients and bring business in. I mean, I’m not just making this stuff up, and it isn’t coming from me. I think all of the partners I’ve talked with would agree with this, and they have told me this.”
Nobody’s silencing your opinion or saying you’re wrong for not participating in groupthink. Your opinion is just really condescending to people that don’t participate in the same behaviors you do. You’re arguing that anyone that doesn’t party has bad social skills, and that’s ridiculous, because coming from someone else that attends a “work hard, play hard” school, people simply have a preference for how they spend their time. It doesn’t make them “weird” just because they like to spend their time in ways that you don’t…
Beyond that, it seems weird that you (as a college student) would make such generalized claims about how “every” successful person has to be a partier, when everyone is saying that’s not true. Sure smoozing goes on in the corporate world. I’m not sure how much smoozing is going on at your average fraternity party.
Nobody is misconstruing what you said, you made a series of generalizations against kids that don’t party based on faulty logic.
Your entire argument is just some long drawn out “dude bro” logic that you’re cool/successful and everyone that doesn’t do/like what you do is an outcast. Just because you like how you do things doesn’t mean everyone else wants to do them that way.
And don’t assume some of us have forgotten or still aren’t experiencing some of this.
Especially since some of those attending those parties may actually be grad students or even adults from the outside who could still easily pass for traditionally aged undergrad students or at the most…folks in their mid-20s. And that’s assuming the partygoers are still sober enough to notice/care.
Incidentally, I attended a Christmas party at Columbia a week or so ago and several students and faculty still asked me questions which made it apparent they mistook me for an undergrad*.
Very amusing. Especially considering I graduated college nearly 2 decades ago and took some graduate classes at Columbia a decade ago.
What is your major? What dorm are you in? What did you think of orientation? Where did you go to HS?
“that just means I have a more up-to-date understanding of the college drinking/social scene than someone who has been removed from it for decades.”
And don’t assume that even though we may be decades older than we are “removed” from what goes on today. We have kids, nieces, nephews and their friends your age and watch them navigate college and careers. We have been or currently are involved in the hiring process at companies we work for or in our own businesses, including careers in industries you yourself have expressed potential interest in.
Alright, alright. I’ll change what I said and say going out/partying really helps with social skills, but is not required and you’re not necessarily weird if you don’t do it.
