Hammy said:
I wasn't talking about a reaction in general. I was talking about meier's quote, which I've seen before in life.
When I used to be religious, one of the best ways to avoid breaking religous rules was to simply avoid situations where there was the tempation. Why expose oneself to the situation and set oneself up for a fall?
Like I said, religion is a special case and doesn't really pertain to my points. If drinking is frowned upon by your religion, you have plenty reason not to go party.
As for the "you shouldn't be in college" part: Contrary to some of the romantic views of college in this thread, college does not have to involve areas outside of academics. Consider the number of ways you can go through college (internet classes, TV classes, night classes, credit by examination, and so on). Also, most schools outside of the top tier and the uh, unusual (usually liberal arts) schools don't really take into consideration the applicant's mental status. GPA and SAT scores will do fine. Distilled down, college is getting that piece of parchment at the end. Sure, letters and social skills help too, but they aren't in the applications or scholarship forms students fill out when they enter college.
Fair enough. I thought it was well understood we were talking about standard university college because that's what the original poster was talking about. My mental status comment had more to do with the simple fact that if you're not mentally/emotionally ready to go to a party, then the whole idea of dorm life and all is going to be even harder for you. I don't really think that is up for debate, personally. Judging by the antics at some parties, one really doesn't have to do a whole lot to be 'ready' to go to a party other than shower and brush their teeth. I have a hard time imagining the average well adjusted college age kid is somehow not "ready" to go to a party, unless they have extreme social anxiety, which I wouldn't know how to begin talking about so I'll exclude from my points(since I don't really have any knowledge ont he matter).
But that doesn't really change my opinion that college is more than a peice of paper. Call it a romanticised view if you will, but I think in university people grow in more ways than just their intellect. To deny yourself that is a shame to me. There IS more to college than just a peice of paper and something to put on a resume. If someone chooses to make that all college is than it's really their loss.
Help? I don't get it. I thought that alcohol does not help with concentration. Doesn't it disrupt your planning process? How about the analysis of what they're saying?
Since when were concentration, planning, and careful analysis of what people were saying necesary parts of "shooting the shit". I don't go to a party to get deep insight into the details of induced currents from time dynamic magnetic flux, and their pertenence to EMP bombs and global terrorism.
Actually picturing how a conversation about that at a party would go is kinda funny...
But when I look around at a party I see people goofing of, meeting people, catching up with people they haven't talked to in awhile, and just enjoying their precious free time.
Again, you don't have to even attend a party to meet people. Students can meet other students at clubs, work, internships, or other school events.
Of course you dont. But as I said, I think it's good to have friends in all corners of college. When you meet people at such places you're inevitably meeting people that share some interest that you are somewhat passionate about, otherwise you wouldn't be at these places. Good example: a good friend of mine is a spanish major, just got back from studyingecuador, holds entirely different interests than me in nearly every aspect of everything. Our only common ground is that we're both fairly liberal, though I don't care about politics anywhere near enough to get involved in any political stuff on campus. She's a great friend and I love hanging out with her. Where did I meet her? Well, since we're obviously not in any of the same clubs/internships, and I've already been over how it's tough to meet people in class if you actually pay attention to the professor...it's pretty apparent that I would've had to meet her at a party. I have another friend who I'm polar opposite of, only common ground is we're both very passionate about music, and are both guitarists. He had no idea there was a guitar club at our school, so I didn't meet him there. Met him at a party, again, and he's the only person I know as passionate about playing guitar as I am(atleast that goes to my school...I know plenty of people outside the school that are).
There's lots of cases like this where you make friends that you, in all likelyhood, wouldn't have met otherwise. Some of them turn out to be really good friends too. That's not to say everyone you meet will be cool, I've met my fair share of real assholes at parties, but you take the good with the bad.
I've heard different things about the difficulty of the math major. English I've heard can be difficult. But it's not that hard to meet people. Even in the big lecture classes, people will usually sit in a certain area of the class after a certain period of time. Just talk to the people around you before and after class. In less popular majors like math, you will probably meet the same people class after class. As for girls, just go to some club with a lot of females or whatever. Treat them like any other person; they aren't intimidating.
I think the difficulty of majors depends on the school. My school (University of Maryland, College Park) is a big time math school. Even english majors have to take an entrance math exam. There is no entrance english exam. Math is a very tough major here (I'd make the case that my physics major so far has been much harder so far, I don't have to start doubling up on hard math classes until my junior year though). It also depends on the person...I'd have a rough time as an english major simply because i ABHOR writing papers. But I"m digressing...This gets back to the meeting people all over campus. You're bound to meet people in your major. One of my favorite social circles is with my fellow physics majors. It's pretty cool being able to get together and shoot the shit about electrodynamics or oscilations or fourier series or whatever we're studying and all be on the same page. But that's obviously one very specific social circle. What about all the business administration majors...they're generally not hanging around the physics building.
About the clubbing for girls, that works to an extent, except that it's nice to meet people that go to your school, and often times at clubs you'll meet people that don't. At parties it's usually almost entirely students of the school, plus depending on the school sometimes it's much easier to actually get to a party than a club. From my dorm I can usually walk to any one of dozens of parties on a given weekend, but no way I'm going to try and walk to a club. Freshmen, in most cases, can't have cars at my school, so that becomes problematic if I want to go to a club. In many cases parties are just simply easier to get to.
