Tricky Decisions

Whether you went out a lot in high school or focused on school and stayed at home; in college your faced with difficult decisions around partying. We have all heard the rumors about Penn State, that we are one of the top party schools in the nation. Even all the professors and staff realize this too, warning us during SHOtime that when we drink, to participate in low-risk drinking as opposed to high-risk drinking. No longer are schools telling their students NOT to drink or party because they know kids are not going to listen. Instead they are trying to educate students on safer ways to go out and socialize with their friends. Whether it be the first week in college or sometime in the 4 years your here, there’s no way to avoid the pressures of partying.
Maybe the fact that we are a huge party school is the reason some students attend this school, and trust me they will not be disappointed. If you try hard enough, and maybe not even that hard, you can find a party every single night! I don’t understand how some people are able to go out during the week and still get everything done. This is a big problem for some students coming into college from high school. They are surrounded by this party environment and want to be involved in it completely. Ya you might be able to survive the first week going out every night, but when school starts to really settle in you run into problems. Many students do not know how to balance their social life and their academic life. In high school, the classes were not as demanding and didn’t set a standard for jobs that decide your whole future. No one wants to say no to their friends when they ask you to go out, even if you have a huge exam coming up. Students get tripped up and fall behind in classes because they cannot manage their time correctly. Maybe it will take trial and error for students to figure out how much they can take but if they want to actually do well in college, my advice is, save the partying for the weekends.

One thought on “Tricky Decisions

  1. I think that you address a very important issue that is extremely relevant to all of us, especially this class of freshman. It shows how strong the pressures can be when even Honors students struggle with them. I specifically liked that you highlighted that now colleges are focusing more on providing programs like AWARE and SAFE, rather than pretending that students won’t be making such decisions at all. All of your points are really awesome, keep it up!

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