#1 Party School

This American Life’s #1 Party School episode talks about the current college “party” life style and the issues which it has presented to Penn State, the number one ranked party school in the nation. Drinking and other party related activities presents Penn State and many other schools with a wide variety problems. 

Many similarities and differences can be found between the party scenes here at Xavier and Penn State. At both schools, and at just about every school, you can find disrespectful drunk students and underage drinking. However, I do not believe these things here at Xavier have escalated to the levels found at Penn State. Sure some students here at Xavier get “drunk” and do stupid disrespectful things, such as kick over trash cans in surrounding neighborhoods; but I have yet to see neighbors of Xavier’s campus go to the “extremes” that the neighbors have had to gone to at Penn State. A perfect example of these extreme measures would be the situation of Larry Jones, the man interviewed by This American Life. Larry lives by the fraternities at Penn State and comes across problems such as kids kicking his fence, peeing in his yard, and walking through his yard every weekend. The problems have become so severe at Larry’s house that he has had to install a system of motion sensors in his yard. This example demonstrates exactly how bad the drinking problems at Penn State have become. This problem is so severe that the neighbors of Penn State have spent considerable amounts of money to install these technologies, just to protect their property. Penn State has Greek Fraternities, which I believe are the cause of many of its’ problems. These fraternities throw a considerable amount of parties. These parties, which are thrown on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, have majorly contributed to Penn’s “#1 Party School” ranking, 15% alcohol related assault rate, and the 1,700 college students nation wide which die alcohol related deaths every year.

As I said earlier, I believe that we have not yet have reached the “Penn State level” here at Xavier. For the most part, I believe that the neighbors of our campus enjoy living next door to Xavier. The attitudes of our neighbors are a critical component of our schools reputation. If our neighbors think our school is trash, its fair to say that other people outside of our neighborhood will think the same. However if we do not take action, I believe that we will eventually reach the level of problems found at Penn State. If we are not careful we too will have 40% percent of the city’s budget going to the police department, just to deal with drunk students like University Park, PA. If drinking problems grow any further here at Xavier, neighbors of our campus will also have to have to spend large amounts of money to secure their property. I believe that the main reason Xavier does not experience the level of problems Penn State experiences is largely due to our absence of the Greek fraternity system. All the drinking that is promoted within this fraternity system takes away from the educational experience and diminishes the academic reputation of the school. Students who are always drinking are learning absolutely nothing during time when they could be studying and learning a great deal. Parents pay an outrageous amount of money to send their children to college. Shouldn’t these kids take advantage of every part of this education? Why even bother to pay this large amount of money if all these students are going to do is party and waste this money away?