Other Campus: Wasted education (U. Maryland)

By The Diamondback

(U-WIRE) COLLEGE PARK, Md. – As parents spend this week packing their freshmen for the big transition to college life, stern lectures about the dangers of excessive drinking will undoubtedly be delivered – likely to deaf ears, rolling eyes and muttered promises of abstinence from alcohol. The university’s attempt to educate its incoming freshmen is a decent attempt to deliver the same information, but will likely elicit the same reaction from many of the students who will go out and get dangerously drunk anyway.

By not pushing an abstinence-only approach to alcohol and emphasizing education, the administration will likely get a more favorable response than it would with a prohibitionist stance. By acknowledging students will drink and attempting to make sure they do it safely, the university may alienate partiers less and keep them closer to its protection.

But the university may be playing Sisyphus, eternally rolling a keg up a hill. Many students are still likely to drink themselves to dangerous excess. Only the handful of students who were truly unaware of the information presented in the two-and-a-half-hour course will likely be swayed one way or another.

One student may go through the course and absorb the information carefully before drinking again; another may slog through as quickly as possible before heading down to Knox Road for a six-keg party. The responsibility lies primarily with the students; the university may be wasting its time if the freshmen are not receptive.

Staff Editorial

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The Diamondback (U. Maryland)