Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
the effects of alcohol on college students
alcohol in college students introduction
binge drinking on America college campuses
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: the effects of alcohol on college students
“80 percent of teen-agers have tried alcohol, and that alcohol was a contributing factor in the top three causes of death among teens: accidents, homicide and suicide” (Underage, CNN.com pg 3). Students may use drinking as a form of socializing, but is it really as good as it seems? The tradition of drinking has developed into a kind of “culture” fixed in every level of the college student environment. Customs handed down through generations of college drinkers reinforce students' expectation that alcohol is a necessary ingredient for social success. These perceptions of drinking are the going to ruin the lives of the students because it will lead to the development alcoholism. College students who drink a lot, while in a college environment, will damage themselves mentally, physically, and socially later in life, because alcohol adversely affects the brain, the liver, and the drinkers behavior.
The customs that college students go through are mostly a result of the environment they live in. The walls of college sports arenas everywhere have advertisements from alcohol industry sponsors somewhere, even if it is in the smallest area, it is still visible. Magness Arena does not have advertisements on the walls but they do sell beer to students. I have seen many students that go to University of Denver get alcohol when at a game. Local establishments near campus that serve or sell alcohol, depend on the college clientele for their financial success. These students that help with the local establishments normally get their beer for parties. Many people think that it will be easier to meet people at party if there is alcohol. When the majority of students look at a college they look at the sports teams, academics, and they actually...
... middle of paper ...
...them when they take just one drink of alcohol, even if it is just one shot or one beer, it affect you. Most college student drink to socialize and that is not a good thing to do. When a students, or anyone, drink to be social there are more likely to have more then what they intended. Alcohol will affect the way that students think, feel, act, and socialize with others. Drink is a dangers action to participate in but that is a choice that one needs to make on their own. It is always fun at the time, but at that same time one does not think that they are permanently arming to their bodies. Whether children and teens drink 15,25 or even 30 percent of the alcohol consumed, the reality is that America has an underage drinking epidemic and alcohol is by far the drug most used by children and teens and poses the greatest threat to their well-being” (Underage, CNN.com pg2).
College student drunkenness is far from new and neither are college and university efforts to control it. What is new, however, is the potential to make real progress on this age-old problem based on scientific research results. New research-based information about the consequences of high-risk college drinking and how to reduce it can empower colleges and universities, communities, and other interested organizations to take effective action. Hazardous drinking among college students is a widespread problem that occurs on campuses of all sizes and geographic locations. A recent survey of college students conducted by the Harvard University School of Public Health reported that 44 percent of respondents had drunk more than five drinks (four for women) consecutively in the previous two weeks. About 23 percent had had three or more such episodes during that time. The causes of this problem are the fact that students are living by themselves no longer with parents or guardians; they earn their own money; students need to be a part of a group, be accepted; and they have the wrong idea that to feel drunk is “cool.”
Earlier studies have examined this issue of alcohol consumption and the negative peer effects among college students. Sacerdote (2001) examines peer effects in universities. He finds evidence that supports this theory that students whose roommates reported high beer consumption were more likely to replicate the same behavior. Kremer and Levy (2003) noted that peers who had a roommate that drank could potentially increase the peer’s preference for alcohol consumption. The Cooperative Institutional Research Program’s (CIRP’s) Entering Student Survey demonstrated GPA’s declining in peers whose roommates drank alcohol frequently, especially those who had in high school. The survey classified males as being especially sensitive to peer influences. Empirical data presented by Wechsler, Lee, Kuo & Lee (2000) show that alcohol use and abuse reported by 40% of university students had been binge drinking at least once within the past two weeks and it was concluded that alcohol use, and more specifically binge drinking, is a social influence by peers.
Many temptations are faced in college culture and one of them is underage drinking and driving. Underage drinking and driving has essentially become an epidemic, rapidly developing among today’s youth. College culture has come to encourage drinking and driving through the places and people that surround the students (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, October 2002). Some people don’t see underage drinking as an issue, when in fact it is a huge issue that every teenager will face. Since underage drinking is illegal people want to rebel by drinking; additionally, alcohol is really easy to get ahold of in college. Since many students are going to drink, the first line of defense is to educate students about the effects of alcohol and what can happen if students do drink and drive. Unless we are able to put a stop to underage drinking and driving through education, and a system called smart start the problem wont get any better.
However, the drinking age does not cause problems in colleges. In fact, “college environments that afford easy access to low-cost alcohol, have few policies restricting accessibility to alcohol, and have lax enforcement of existing policies create the conditions for heavy drinking among college students” (Wechsler and Nelson). The problem of alcohol is not that there is an age restriction, it’s the easy access of alcohol. With easy access of alcohol, creates the possibly of binge drinking to occur, which is most prevalent in colleges. Binge drinking occurs because of the new freedoms young adults have. They are finally away from their parents and they can do whatever they like whenever they like, unlike before. It does not matter if the legal drinking age is 18 or 30, college students are going to drink with an age restriction or
Not only in the US, Many countries around the world have the same problem in college campuses. Like many European countries, college drinking has been developed into kind of traditional culture in the US and she has been facing the change of the culture of drinking at colleges. However, other than the damage and injuries that happen during semester break each year, the only consequences of college drinking that usually come to the public's attention are occasional student deaths from alcohol overuse, such as alcohol poisoning or other alcohol-related tragedies. (Ramaley) In fact, the consequences of college drinking are much more than occasional and normal. According to the studies, 1,825 college students who aged from 18 to24 died from alcohol-related inadvertent injuries, including car crashes, while 599,000 students are unintentionally hurt over the influence of alcohol (Hingson et al., 2009). College drinking also results in serious injuries, assaults, sexual abuse and other health and academic problems. The impacts of excessive college drinking are more widespread and destructive than most people realize. Therefore, this essay will first consider the pr...
Many of us, especially during those days in college have woken up with a pounding headache, dry throat and bleary eyes wondering how we got to this point. However, very few of us wonder why we drank so much when most of us are smart enough to know the consequences of heavy drinking. In the book “Getting wasted: why college students drink too much and party so hard”, the sociologist professor from Ohio University examined college drinking culture.
We all know what it is like to wake up in the morning, with our head aching, and our body feeling like it was just hit by a train. College students world wide know this feeling. These are the results of binge drinking. The question of why college students continue to submit themselves to alcohol is unknown. While many reasons are given, the cause generally falls into one of three categories, peer pressure, insecurity, or to help solve there problems. But the one thing students don’t realize are the consequences and effects that binge drinking can have, health and social problems are just a few.
According to a national survey conducted by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, “almost 60 percent of college students ages 18–22 drank alcohol in the past month, 1 and almost 2 out of 3 of them engaged in binge drinking during that same timeframe” (NIH). Binge drinking culture refers to the recent rise and normalization of college age students drinking excessively. The CDC describes binge drinking as “a pattern of drinking that brings a person’s blood alcohol level to 0.08grams within two hours” (CDC). For many young adults, college is one of the first times they will experience complete freedom. This freedom often leads to partying, which goes hand in hand with the consumption of alcohol. However, since the age at which
This is the most common form of alcohol consumption, especially in youth under the age of 21. Just within the last month there has been 85 plus alcohol related incidents, and over half involved freshman according to the University of Mississippi’s crime report. Instances such as these could have easily resulted in death, hence 1, 825 college students die each year from alcohol. Drinking is not only harmful to students bodies, but aslo academic performaces. A personal testimony came fromer freshamn here at Ole Miss stating how drinking during the begining of his collge career resulted in missing class, doing poorly on exams, and haveing a lower grade in classses overall. According to many freshman students here at the University of Mississippi, alcohol is the way to have fun at social events such as parties and other night activities on campus, the beverage itself is believed to help break the
In recent studies by U.S News and World Report, college campuses are turning off the tap. In other words banning alcohol entirely. One of the reasons for the banning of alcohol on campus is due to the outstanding reports of alcohol related incidents that have taken the lives of students. September of 97’, Scott Krueger, and eighteen-year-old freshman at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, died from alcohol poisoning while at a Phi Gamma Delta initiation event.(Reisberg, 1) The lack of action taken by MIT caused the students’ parents to sue them for their irresponsibility.(Reisberg, 2) Another accident that occurred due to alcohol was to a twenty-year-old Louisiana State University student named Benjamin Wynne. Wynne had apparen...
Although this may be true, some people will still argue that alcoholic drinks are not always a bad thing, especially if you are a teenager that wants to experience a little bit of danger and living to the fullest, as the Americans say live wild and free. Most of the new students in college feel that they are free from their parents; they can do anything want to do without worrying about the watchful eyes of their parents. The feelings of excitement that drive teenagers to try new things and experiment, for example drinking alcohol. Nowadays young people often ...
In fact, college is a prime time to drink. Most students are under 21. Teaching people to drink responsibly before they turn 21 might improve teen’s behaviors toward drinking. Binge drinking seems to be a rite of passage in today’s society. Possibly removing the “taboo” of drinking for teens will be a better way to handle the perceived alcohol problems. In fact, Dwight B Heath a Brown University anthropology professor says when he is asked what the minimum legal drinking age should be in the U.S., he says, “Eight, maybe even six.” He isn’t advocating getting kids drunk. Instead he favors the cultural model common in countries like France or Italy, where parents serve small amounts of wine to their children at family meals By doing this, he says, parents educate their kids about alcohol and rob drinking of its allure, which can make rebellious teenagers to sneak off to basements and backwoods to binge drink far from adult supervision. Heath says, “In general the younger people start to drink the safer they are. Alcohol has no mystique. It’s no big deal. By contrast, where it’s banned until age 21, there’s something of the ‘forbidden fruit’ syndrome (CNN 2015).
Binge or excessive drinking is the most serious problem affecting social life, health, and education on college campuses today. Binge or excessive drinking by college students has become a social phenomena in which college students do not acknowledge the health risks that are involved with their excessive drinking habits. Furthermore college students do not know enough about alcohol in general and what exactly it does to the body or they do not pay attention to the information given to them. There needs to be a complete saturation on the campus and surrounding areas, including businesses and the media, expressing how excessive drinking is not attractive and not socially accepted.
Most people do not realize that alcohol is a drug that claims the lives of youth in college campuses across the world. In my case, it took the encounter with the ORL staff at UCLA for me to come to understanding that I am putting myself and those around me in danger through my risky drinking habits. With hours of self-reflection and the help of a cosmopolitan article called The Deadly Drinking Mistakes Smart Girls Make, I have found that there are several risks associated with alcohol that can put me at a quarrel with death. Even so, drinking does not always need to be deadly, and by keeping in mind the well-being of my fellow bruins and the skills mentioned in the article, I can find a balance between drinking for fun and drinking till death.
College, a place once populated by contemplative students, has experienced an unexpected twist over the past few years: 1,825 deaths, 599,000 injuries, 696,000 assaults, and 97,000 cases of sexual abuse (College Drinking ). These are such drastic numbers, but there is only one reason for all these corrupted acts of society: alcohol. Abusing the privileges of alcohol corrupts students’ mind, intellectually and socially.