One of the largest parts of many college students college experience involves greek life. Everyone has seen movies of frat houses and has heard the countless amounts of myths about pledging. While hazing is banned by every college, every national headquarters of all fraternities, and even with the police, it still happens. On every campus there is hazing. Of course the severity of the hazing differs from house to house and university to university, but nonetheless it is more than common. Hazing is the most common reason for fraternities to be kicked off campuses and get their charter revoked by nationals. Despite the harsh consequences hazing is still alive.

There is a very reasonable question to ask here: why do fraternities risk everything just to haze these kids? The answer is basically the same everywhere: it builds unity in a pledge class (who is basically the group that will be best friends for the rest of their life), as well as increasing respect, and building brotherhood.  Once most people finally get into these fraternities, they then want to put the next kids through what they just went through. The basis of the fraternity is that you can be best friends with every member, and the thought is that by doing things like hazing it makes only the ones who really want to be there stay; and then essentially weeds out the ones who weren’t a perfect fit.

First off, I first became familiar with fraternities from my older brother. As I got older I started to inquire more, and he told me that everyone he knew who pledged and got hazed during it said the same thing; they are very happy they went through all of it and when it was finally over it was the best feeling and they all said that it was worth going through. All of the people that I have talked to here at school here have told me almost exactly that as well. So to me it seems that the majority of people who make it through tend to be stronger mentally, as one of the major parts of hazing is mental toughness.

Does this make it ok? Absolutely not. Hazing is just something that is a part of the culture and tradition of fraternities. Throughout all of time there have been groups who’s practices have become outlawed but that does not stop them from practicing them. Fraternities are the same way as they are essentially clubs with secret traditions that have been passed down for years. Having said that, everyone has heard of at least one tragic story due to hazing, whether due to forced drinking or even suicide because of the mental effects on the person, it has happened. To start “eighteen to twenty-five year olds have one of the highest rates of severe psychological distress out of any age group, and also have the lowest rate of seeking help (http://notthecorrecturl.orgsync.com/org/nohazing/hiddenharm).” The most common mental disorders in young people today are anxiety disorders and depression. Hazing increases the stress on a day to day basis and combining that with the age of the highest rates of psychological distress is a recipe for disaster.

This means that the age in which pledging occurs is the time in their life with the highest base of psychological distress. Adding the amount of stress that pledging can to this is already elevated amount can lead to someone exploding and harming themselves. Some fraternities have hazing events that are so bad to can cause the pledges to have severe breakdowns and it can even be as bad as having flashbacks, sort of PTSD on a lower scale.

In conclusion, it is widely accepted that hazing should be illegal, as it is, and the ramifications as heavy as they are. Clearly hazing can really mess with a person’s head as there have been countless stories that haven’t ended the way they should have. Finally, I also really don’t believe that hazing will end any time soon, but that hopefully anyone who is having problems finds the help they need and that the brothers can draw the line and not push these kids over the edge. As well as the police and nationals can enforce these rules and punish those accordingly.

Sources:

http://notthecorrecturl.orgsync.com/org/nohazing/hiddenharm

http://cornellsun.com/blog/2007/01/26/effects-of-hazing-last-long-after-pledging-process/

Anyone who has been at State College for even just this semester are more than aware of how cold it can get. All us freshman have been told how brutal it can get and that we haven’t experienced anything yet; even those of us who are a mere 3 hour car ride away. With that being said, it has gotten pretty cold already. Last year at some point pretty much every region in the country encountered a cold snap. I have always wondered why a place that is so close to my house could have such a drastic difference in how cold winter is.

Last year was one of the coldest on record for the region for both temperature and snowfall. This was mainly due to the polar vortex which ventured southward and does so quite frequently. As you can see in this video by NASA…

…the polar vortex would make its way down from Canada through the mid-west and would get to central Pennsylvania before heading back northward to Canada and the Arctic. The reason behind the air being so frigid is that it originates in the Arctic where it is dark for almost the entire day so the air gets no sunlight and therefore has no heat to carry. Last year was a particularly cold winter for the entire northeast, mid-west, and mid-atlantic. This is because when the polar vortex journeyed down to the US, a jet stream formed and blocked the way. A jet stream is essentially a river of air at about 20,000 ft and can greatly influence air masses.

Another major contributor to the absolutely bone chilling winter of State College is the surrounding of the city. First of all, the city has an elevation of approximately 1,200 feet above sea level which means that the air is thinner and cannot trap as much heat. Also being set in the middle of the Allegheny Mountains with Mount Nittany in plain view from campus traps a majority of the cold air into the valley. When the air moves towards the mountains the lighter warm air is pushed upwards over the mountains while the cold air remains behind, stuck with all of us down here in Happy Valley. This process of the mountains blocking the cold air is often referred to as Cold Air Damming, as the mountains essentially are a dam which allows warm air to pass over trapping the cold air. Now we can all know exactly why we will be freezing while walking to class.

Sources:

http://www.livescience.com/48742-heavy-snowfall-polar-vortex.html

http://www.wect.com/story/27526780/weather-101-cold-air-damming

One of the more common things that many athletes have either tried or do frequently is take Advil before a game. I personally have done it before baseball due to elbow problems and I can say from experience that it definitely felt helpful. As a whole, my body was not sore as it usually was. In my throwing elbow especially, I couldn’t really feel any pain which was a huge difference from when I hadn’t taken it.

Drugs such as Aspirin, Yylenol, Advil, and Aleve are all classified as NSAIDs or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications. They work by preventing your body from making prostaglandins which are used for calling inflammation to an injury, or your muscles after or during working out or playing sports. In a study done in 2012 9 healthy, fit men were put through 4 different trials. First, take Ibuprofen twice before a bike workout, then to do the same bike workout but without the Ibuprofen. Next they were given Ibuprofen twice during rest, and lastly to rest without Ibuprofen. The results of this experiment were “both ibuprofen consumption and cycling resulted in increased I-FABP levels, reflecting small intestinal injury. Levels were higher after cycling with ibuprofen than after cycling without ibuprofen, rest with ibuprofen, or rest without ibuprofen.” The conclusion was that “this is the first study to reveal that ibuprofen aggravates exercise-induced small intestinal injury and induces gut barrier dysfunction in healthy individuals. We conclude that nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs consumption by athletes is not harmless and should be discouraged (Top Institute Food and Nutrition, Wageningen, The Netherlands.)”

Now knowing that taking these before working out will definitely make me think twice about it. With that being said, the conclusion was that it was not very harmful which makes me believe that taking it every once in a while when sore has much more positive effects than negative ones.

Sources:

http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/health-fitness/exercise/should-you-take-ibuprofen-before-exercise?page=all

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22776871

One of the most abused drugs on college campuses across the country seems to fly under the radar. The drug I am referring to is Adderall, whether called Adderall, Ritalin, or Vyvanse, it is used more than frequently.

Adderall is a combination of amphetamine aspartate, amphetamine sulfate, dextroamphetamine saccharine, and dextroamphetamine sulfate. It is prescribed mainly to patients with ADHD to help them focus. The reason it is so popular on college campuses is because when students are crammed with work or studying for finals it is often hard to focus for an excessive amount of time at once. So these students take it in order to spend long sleepless nights doing their work. A National Survey on Drug Use and Health report released in 2009 reported that full-time college students were twice as likely to abuse Adderall than part-time students (http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/17/health/adderall-college-students/).

The reason these work so well is because the stimulants “strengthen the brain’s brakes, its inhibitory capacities, so it can control its power more effectively, (Dr. Edward Hallowell, a psychiatrist and ADHD expert.)” Being able to allow your brain to control its power more efficiently allows these students to use more of their brain power on the task at hand.

Despite the widespread use of Adderall, it is considered a Schedule II substance by the DEA which ranks right next to meth, cocaine, and morphine. Some short-term side effects are sleep difficulties, restlessness, headaches, irritability and depressed feelings; as well as loss of appetite and nervousness. Even though many students know some of the consequences, they may not realize that not knowing the dosages could lead to an overdose. With all of these negative effects, I have also heard from people that taking it to study really does help. Overall, as long as college students need to cram in work there will be Adderall being abused; but I believe that colleges would be smart to try and spread the word about how to take it safely if students are going to try it.

Source:

http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/17/health/adderall-college-students/

Hi everyone, my name is Aaron Rawdin, I’m just like 98% of the people here and I am from “right outside of Philly”. I’m from Abington which is home to one of the Penn State branch campuses and is pretty close to the outskirts of Philadelphia. I was always somewhat interested in science in school but it was never my strong suit. I enjoyed more of the ideas and learning why things happen then the math and actually figuring these things out. When selecting my schedule I was told of SC200 which was a science course intended to bring together science and our world for non-science majors. As soon as I heard this I decided that it was right for me and I signed up. Overall I enjoyed talking about these topics as apposed to working extensively with them which is why I never really thought about being a science major and instead intend to major in…