In my great state of Pennsylvania it seems that high school seniors are well on their way to fitting right into the college life style. In a recent survey 44% of the states high school seniors said that they drink fairly regularly and many would say pretty heavily despite all sorts of law enforcement initiatives and scholastic programs illustrating the dangers and the illegality of underage drinking and driving under the influence. It also didn’t seem to dissuade anyone in this demographic that their peers were dying all around them.
Call me a cynic (you wouldn’t be the first) but the survey also showed a huge disparity in this behavior with students in lesser grades acting much more responsible and indulging much less in such risky scenarios, this I believe is because many students are looking forward to college as the time to be on your own and to party hardy. In fact working on a University campus shows me this party culture to be endemic. While not every high school senior will go to college or to a university the ones that do sometimes it seems choose colleges on it’s party culture reputation. To me it’s much akin to seeing inner city youth wearing athletic gear in a certain academic institutions colors. They are wearing it because of style and hype not, not because of its academic reputation. Sad but true, that while there seems no end to programs and rule modifications at universities with regards to alcohol and drug policies, more and more students seem to die in all sorts of pointless and tragic ways because “After all man, the college experience isn’t JUST about learning.”
Unfortunately learning a lesson the hard way may be the last lesson you’ll ever learn.
