Every student comes to college for an education, however many students come to party. Any movie or TV show watched revolving around college life focuses on the drinking and party aspect of college. Although underage drinking is not something I’m promoting, it’s a common act taken by underclassmen, especially freshman. Finally let free by their parents, they come to college with a new sense of freedom. With that freedom often come irresponsible acts, like drinking.
If a student is going to drink then that is their decision, but many girls drink stupidly. There isn’t a real smart way to drink underage, but girls drink past their limits, and even worse take drinks from people they don’t know. All of us freshman are placed in a situation where we know little to no one here. This is not high school where you know every person at a party and you have your friends to watch you once you’re drunk. Instead we go to parties hoping to meet knew people, and by doing this we drink foreign drinks, often handed to you by cute upperclassmen boys.
Most of us freshman girls take the drinks thinking that these boys have good intentions of making us friends, or maybe more than that. But these girls don’t think about what can be in the drink. A recent study from the smartersex.org Web site found that “for every 1,000 women attending college, there will be 35 incidents of rape in a given academic year.”
Within my first week here I woke up in the nurse with no memory of the night before, not knowing how I got there or why I was there. I later found out that I was found by some guys on my floor semi-unconscious making no sense at all. I do not remember that night, I only heard small bits and pieces of what happened. I was lucky enough to be found by people I knew before anything happened but I could have been easily raped or even worse.
I’m not writing this piece to preach to girls not to go out and party, but I just wanted to try to pass my lesson onto other girls. Please do not go out by yourself to a party where you don’t really know anyone. Do not take drinks from random people. If you’re going to drink, then pour your own drink, open your own beer.
I know these are all lessons you’ve heard before, but I heard them too once and I obviously threw those thoughts out of the window. I always said I’d never be that stupid, but after you’ve had a few drinks you don’t think clearly.
That’s why I urge everyone one of you to go out in groups, and watch out for each other. Don’t become another statistic, just be careful because a night that is intended to be fun can turn into your biggest nightmare; I learned that the hard way.
