The Culture of On-Campus Drinking: Can We Do Something Different?
Finding the Crux of the Problem
Our group’s plan for gathering real data came from a simple but affective process. We took large sheets of paper, added our question to the top, left materials for the answers, and waited. Some questions we asked were:
Why do you drink?
Where do you drink?
Who do you drink with?
What is an alternative to drinking that would interest you?
While we waited we reached out to experts in the field to understand the following:
Who is drinking and why?
What happens biologically when young adults engage in drinking, binge / excessive drinking?
What are the safety implications for on-campus drinking culture?
Through these avenues we were able to gather a wholistic picture of on-campus drinking culture, to which we could then create an alternative to drinking.
The Journey of a Drinking Experience
Beginning of the Semester
Drinking culture on campus is completly a stress induced activity. For many indivuals their first drink is consumed at an energetic, happy environment such as a party. It’s a bit of “monkey see, monkey do”. Nonetheless, this is the beginning of the cycle.
On-campus security noted that this is when they see their first spike of alchol related injuriess, and crimes.
A Different Solution
Much of the feedback that we recieved from the student body was that they needed a way to decompress that was encouraged and supported by staff and faculty and facilitated by the University.
Our group imagined Recharge Rooms (pictured right). These imagined spaces would replace and or utilize the many campus lecture halls. Each building or department would have one that catered directly to their students.
These rooms would have a projected medatative image, calming music/audio, and dim lighting. Comfortable seating of various types would be availble.
Middle of the Semester
By this point , individuals have experience a severe drop in emotion as midterms have hit. Many people feel that they are behind and have no one good why of dealing with the stress. The natural instinct is to numb the anxiety. Drinking increases during this time.
The neuroscientist that we interview expressed that when individuals drink to excess during this period it has heavy inpact as the brain is going through its second and final round of development. The way people handle anxiety (i.e. drinking) will almost always result in a long term issue.
End of the Semester
By the end of the semester, students have developed their way of dealing with stress. Many habits are not healthy but put a balm on the real issue, which is stress management. At the time of this study, Universities are not suited to deal with this as it is view as an individual problem.
The finals at the end of the semester show a second large increase in campus drinking. But this one is purely a stress induced activity.
