Drinkers and Thinkers: Journal Four

To me, Penn State is without a doubt the greatest place on earth, besides my home state of Texas of course. The investigative radio broadcast aimed at understanding the party reputation of PSU did a good job in delivering a message that was understandable to the audience, which I think was pretty much anyone, from college students, to parents, high school kids, etc. There were two immediate reasons this report was made, I believe. They give the impression they just want to investigate why and how, Penn State is the number one party school, as publish by the Princeton review, the push that got the inquisitive ball rolling, but I also think the recent death of Joe Dado was another reason my beloved school was up for investigation. Facts and details are given about the situation from all the various groups quoted, from students (freshmen, seniors, frat boys, girls) to the police, and university officials, as well as just normal residents of the State College area. The variety of people interviewed I think hit all of the perspective out there, though I disagree with the portrayal of most of the female students that participated in drinking and partying. I felt like the report gave a very negative connotation to the drinking at Penn State, one in that the student thought it was completely normal, and that the administrators don’t think they can really do anything about it.

I don’t have any problem with being a student at the number one party school. We are (Penn State!) also well up there in academic rankings, being at least top ten in a dozen or more majors and programs campus-wide. All reports about the binge drinking, crazy tailgating, football weekends, party stories, and news articles conveniently leave out that most kids who go out and drink on Friday and Saturday nights, get up the next morning and do some homework, or hit the gym. Those of us who go out Thursday may not make our 8 am the next day, but that isn’t everyone. And not everyone at PSU drinks; dry parties and activities happen all the time, every weekend. I didn’t like how it seemed a lot of people, from student to faculty, at the university were shown in almost an irresponsible light, and maybe things have changed since I’ve been here, but I have always seen a ridiculously drunk person being helped by one or two friends, and only witnessed one fight, and never, ever, any flaming furniture. I thought the cops perspective was interesting, but I’m pretty sure he was a State College police officer, not campus security, because hearsay is that the campus security goes out of their way to make underages happen, and not just to the blatantly drunk, so there was a perspective that was left out. Always my biggest issue with the PSU party reputation is that while the kid that may have been pounding drinks, shot-gunning beers, and stumbling around Saturday night, they are probably in the library by 2 Sunday afternoon, studying and getting homework done. In all the statistics that the report threw out about averages, they left out a lot of purely academic ones. The percentage of students who chose not to partake in alcoholic festivities sure as hell can’t keep the university’s GPA up enough for the rest of those that do. Just because Penn State has a reputation for drinkers, doesn’t mean those people are thinkers too.