Do Par-tiers get worst grades?

 The one article I found that pertains to my topic is “Partying and the Mysteries of Student Culture” by William Nichols. College education is effected by so many things including partying and the student culture/social life. Nichols is an English teacher at Denison University. My topic is how does student culture or social life affect their school work/grades? In the article, he was told to go around campus at 2 a.m. in the morning and see all the students who are drunk and walking around. Now, he see’s why his classes are acting slow in the morning and sees what is affecting them in the classroom. Nichols said that he gave an assignment about partying to his students and most of them referred to parties as “Raging.”(Nichols) Also, he says that he has longed to understand the culture of partying because it seems to be in conflict with nearly everything I want to accomplish in the classroom. 

     He also says that partying is tearing the academic community down. Partying is a thing that every college student goes through, kind of like a stage (Nichols). It does tear the academic community down because the partying makes student not want to attend class because of laziness or sickness from partying. They spend all of their time partying and no time studying or doing their assignments. It really affects a student’s grades and gpa from just one semester of partying and not taking college seriously. Partying increases and studying decreases. Also, lack of sleep can hurt the body and when they attend class the next day, they cannot concentrate on the class because of the lack of sleep. If the students want to party then they better be able to maintain their attendance (which is not mandatory for most classes) and also their grades. Making classes mandatory will more than likely increase our graduation rate. It will keep the ones that actually want to be at college and the ones that party (think of college of a way to get away from their parents) will get kicked out.
When I first seen this article I did not think it would really connect with my topic, so I changed my topic to give me a more ideas that I can work with. Since partying is one of the major factors that lead to failing grades and people getting kicked out, I thought I would write on that. The article I choose is based on Partying and the Mysteries of Student Culture and throughout the article he explains a lot about partying and he wants to find the meaning to it. Going to a party can be fun with out drinking but since you’re in college it’s what everyone does. No. College is a place to learn and to grow. It’s to help you in the future and is not suppose to be easy. Most people can handle the struggle of college but others seem to “drink” to not think about it. Since I have firsthand experience (obviously I am in college), I have seen many of the things that Nichols explained at the beginning of his article. I have seen the drunken students walking around on campus, students who are sick and attend class or the ones who never attend, and the party hoppers. Drinking and really mess up your college education. College education is important to be successful in life and some people just do not understand how bad they are messing up their lives.

            My second article is called “The Impact of First Drinking and Differential Association on Collegiate Drinking” and it was written by Celia C. LO. Celia first starts off explaining that drinking has always been a thing that college students do. She says that the college officials see it as the source of misconduct, academic failure, physical injuries, and even death (Celia). Drinking is one way that college students cope with being away from their parents and their parents give them that freedom and they take full advantage (Celia). When college students drink because of their freedom they are also throwing away their parents money or the organization that is funding them. When they get academic failure they could possibly be kicked out and their goes their college education for now. She says that “officials have been alarmed by recent cases of alcohol poisoning and death among college youth.” College education continues to go down as long as these students continue to party and drink. Especially binge drinking. Students drink to relieve their stress and to have a good time. Doing this often, can result in someone becoming an alcoholic. They see the need to drink all the time resulting in grades dropping and potentially getting kicked out of their university. The article is more based off of drinking and studies based off of it but when you think about drinking in the college on thing that is on your mind is their grades. They will think that their grades are showing the effects of alcohol and most of the time they are correct. She is explaining this to show evidence of it actually happening through many surveys and other documents. The audience could be toward Universities and the higher people who work there.


     Throughout my search for different things that have to do with partying and college education, I really could not find anything exactly on point but drinking is pretty close. Drinking is probably what is at every party that goes on at campus. It is something that college is known for. My inquiry is based on college education and partying and how partying can affect the education and the degree of education that the students are receiving. Students seem to do worst when they are tired and sick. Students will party all night and wake up the next morning sick as a dog. More than likely they will miss class but if they decide to go their attention is not focused on the class more or less about being sick and very tired. No one can learn in a situation like that but they will be back at it when they hear about the next party. The article explains how drinking can affect their social life, their health, and their academics. Their health will be greatly hurt if they binge drink and continue to party. They could drink too much and get alcohol poisoning and guess what? They are not in school for a couple of days. Those couple of days could have been a test that they had to pass to pass the class but they decided to get drunk and mess up their semester and gpa. I only considered the beginning of the article because it most fit my topic. The ending of the article is about a survey that was done based on drinking habits and measures of it. Also, it says that the ways people think about someone who drinks alcohol can be seen in various ways based on “how” they are drinking. Anyways, the article provided me with some information and mostly resembles the other article “Partying and the Mysteries of Student Culture.”

                The things I described in this essay is that people should not party all the time. Partying is something that they could do every once and a while but partying all the time will cause students to get bad grades or even getting kicked out. Its important that students realize that drinking is one of the worst things you can do in college. College is a place for learning and having some social activities. Students do not this about the consequences of what can come after “that night.” My film really did not go with what I am explaining here. In Drumline, there was no alcohol consumption in the movie but they rarely showed the boys actually studying. There was one part in the movie that had a party but there was no alcohol. The boys in the movie seemed to be clean.

References

William Nichols, Partying and the Mysteries of Student Culture, The Antioch Review, Vol. 51, No.4, The Glorious Essay (Autumn,1993), pp.537-550, Antioch Review, Inc.

Celia C. Lo, The Impact of First Drinking and Differential Association on Collegiate Drinking, Sociological Focus, Vol. 33, No. 3 (August, 2000), pp. 265-280, Taylor & Francis, Ltd.