Having an alcohol awareness week at Fairfield is as ridiculous as having an anti-drug convention at a Bob Marley concert.
I mean no offense to the creators of this week’s events, or those who work hard to support its cause, but drinking is inevitable in college – for multiple reasons.
The legal drinking age largely influences the amount kids, especially college students, drink before they turn 21. In other countries, including Italy, alcohol isn’t abused because there is no urge to rebel against a law that enforces a drinking age that does not exist in many European countries.
The fact that we are prohibited from drinking alcohol until the age of 21 is ludicrous. I don’t understand how a person can be sent to fight a war that’s not theirs and still not be allowed to have a beer at the local bar when they arrive home.
According to www.sadd.org (Students Against Destructive Decisions), in 2005 about 10.8 million people between the ages of 12 and 20 (28.2 percent of this age group) reported drinking alcohol in the past month.
Nearly 7.2 million (18.8 percent) of those underage drinkers were binge drinkers and 2.3 million (6.0 percent) were heavy drinkers.
The numbers don’t lie. Kids continue to drink from the first time their hormones begin to rage and don’t stop until some of that hormonal energy is released during one crazy night.
When a teenager comes to college, his or her first thought is not to settle down and hit the books, but rather to find the nearest package store.
Freshmen hold a preconceived notion that college will be one huge alcoholic blur, coupled with crazy nights with members of the opposite sex.
There is a reason that college is presented as a big, drunken mess, constantly glamorized by movies, television shows and posters.
Alcohol awareness week is synonymous with the life all of us will face once we awaken from these four years of drunken slumber.
Do you really think that administrators feel alcohol awareness week is going to curb student drinking?
Whether it’s a faculty/student debate, a makeshift holiday where students wear red or a week to discourage underage drinking, some of the school-sponsored events just do not work here because they are not appealing to students.
The little miss preps and sailor boys who comprise the student body at Fairfield won’t give these things a second thought. From their perspective: mommy and daddy are rich, they sent me here, I’m better than everyone else and I will do what I want.
The battle against underage drinking at college is futile.
No matter what punishments are set, what events are held or what sanctions are handed down, students will drink, and drink heavily, until they walk down Bellarmine lawn in a cap and gown.
And that is because nobody tells stories about that intellectually stimulating physics class they took sophomore year. Nobody would even pretend to be interested in that final project.
Maybe they’ll remember the teacher and the kid they sat next to, but my guess is that the typical Fairfield student is more apt to remember what they did that night. Or if it was really good, they won’t.
Leave a Reply