BC Freshman Appalled at School Policies

BC Freshman Tony Daniels was shocked last Friday when a Xavier RA informed him that he would have to stop drinking alcohol and meet with his building’s RD to discuss possible punishment after a large party held in Daniels’ room was broken up. Daniels was also clearly shaken when he was told a note would be sent home to his parents informing them of the offense.

“I always thought that college was, you know, separate from the drinking laws of the United States, like an unwritten rule or something,” said Daniels, who appeared nervous and emotional at the time of the interview.

"This sucks,” Daniels added.

Although most school officials agree that drinking policies are pretty clearly defined and the dangers of alcohol are well communicated to the students, most acknowledge that some students slip through the cracks when it comes to alcohol awareness. A staff member within the student development office who elected to remain nameless said, “AlcoholEdu is great and all, but once in a while you’re going to have a Tony Daniels come strutting in the place thinking its all one big joke. Well its not, and he knows that now.”

Daniels represents a growing number of students seemingly unaware of the drug and alcohol policies of Boston College. Programs such as AlcoholEdu and “Nights on the Heights” have been launched on the BC campus to both inform students about the dangers of drinking and provide them with alternate activities to drinking on the weekends. But with a mere 80% required to pass on the AlcoholEdu course final, it isn’t surprising that many students feel left in the dark.

"I mean, they come out with movies like Animal House, and you think to yourself ‘man, college is gonna be wild’, but then you come in here and get written up for having like 20 people in your good-sized regular triple? C’mon, there was like at least 4 times that many in the Animal House. It’s just not fair,” Daniels ranted in the interview.

Instituted by many colleges throughout the United States in the past decade, AlcoholEdu has recently come under fire after a widespread poll shows that a mere 3% of college students say the skits in the program reflect an average party that they attend. Words such as “forced” and “phlegmatic” were most commonly used in describing the program among students polled, and many confessed to falling asleep to the droning monotonous voice present throughout most of the steps.

“I heard that I have to take that stupid AlcoholEdu thing over again, be on probation for like three months or something, and I’m gonna have to call my parents eventually and tell them what happened, so I’m really bummed out right now. That stupid party is gonna ruin my life for the rest of the semester,” mumbled Daniels as he stared at the floor. When asked what he was going to do this upcoming weekend or if any of the “Nights on the Heights” activities appealed to him, Daniels replied with a hearty laugh; “I dunno, but honestly, I’m probably just gonna end up drinking somewhere else.”