When coming to college, you are confronted with a lot of choices; many times, the choice of what to do on the weekend conflicts with moral and legal matters.
Interestingly enough, what I have observe while being at college is almost a reverse in what you would expect in a "real world" situation: Doing something illegal and questionably immoral (such as drinking under age or doing an illegal drug) is pressured by your friends, and in some cases, your family expectations. In addition, many students do think about or are not influnced by the legal and academic consequences of participating from in these actions.
The choice whether to drink or not to drink can be a difficult decision for a student; as a college student, you are almost expected to drink, regardless of your age. Sometimes, when choosing not to participate in underage drinking, other friends will look down on you and think that you are not a fun person. In this instance, for choosing the more legal and moral path, you are being ridiculed. When choosing to drink, there are small pressures that do not match the "social" ramifications. There is a chance that you will be caught doing "said" illegal action by a Resident Advisor or a Campus Safety officer; this may lead in disciplinary points. In addition, you may make poor decisions after drinking alcohol and may even endanger yourself. However, these consequences may prove to have little influence, and it's the social pressure from friends that are the driving action behind many illegal actions.
The way in which we are pressured to make choices by our peers that may not be linked to our long-term wellbeing is an important point. I'd like to take your point about manipulation a step further and talk about the measures that people take to try to stop people from drinking.
ReplyDeleteI think that statistically, if you were to ask students at Hamilton whether or not they drank, 1 in 3 people would say no. I personally think that is a lot more people than most would expect! Why? Because the way people talk about college students, particularly the rhetoric of people trying to PREVENT them for drinking, often works off of a stereotype that all college students want alcohol.
It's deeply manipulative to be working within the thought framework that everyone wants to drink at Hamilton, or even that everyone who does drink does so to the point where people have to call the EMTs. People often conform to the expectations placed upon them; taking the image of the college student who drinks to get drunk for granted probably does a lot of damage in student choices, particularly those who don't want to be "left out".
I can't say that I think people would stop drinking if others stopped expecting them to; there are obviously a lot of other factors involved. I'm just saying that our rhetoric can define our choices, and sometimes that can be in ways contrary to our personal goals.
As far as drinking is concerned, I think the choices and freedoms are exciting for incoming students, especially if they were heavily controlled and banned from participating in any drinking prior.
ReplyDeleteMy family is very Italian and my dad makes wine, so my family is not shy when it comes to having a drink or so with dinner, so it was not a big deal for me coming here. The pressures first semester freshman year are a lot different than they are later. It is easy to get caught up in the party scene because it is so prevalent on campus and sometimes understanding and pushing our new freedoms can be extreme. I know people who would go out every thursday/friday/saturday night last fall, and I still encounter people who feel the need to go out all those nights. Once you start going out that much it is hard to stop because it is a social event and it is easy to think that there will be social ramifications.
In psych this week we talked about the "Spotlight effect." This effect is when we think people in a group are paying more attention to us then they actually are. In a lot of cases this is true, and sometimes it takes a lot to realize that if you don't go out, you may not be missed as much as you think.
I think the college drinking scene can definitely be manipulating, but after a period of time I think the scene can help you define who you are. Some people are big partiers and that works out fine for their academic career. Some go out once a weekend or occasionally, some not at all. It is all personal preference and I think as one becomes more comfortable with the "college way of life" it is easier to make these kind of decisions and not worry about the social ramifications. You also become part of a core group as time passes on and it is much easier to make your own decisions instead of being worried about what all these new people will think of you.