Preview

Stop Babysitting College Students Froma Harrop Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
724 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Stop Babysitting College Students Froma Harrop Analysis
After reading the essay “Stop Babysitting College Students” by Froma Harrop, an editorial writer and columnist for the Providence Journal, the idea of having major universities taking a biased responsibility of its students drinking habits would by no means succeed. As an eighteen-year-old college freshman at the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) who has just recently been exposed to alcohol, I can tell you that there are limited resolutions that any college or university system can do to prevent college students from not drinking alcohol. Most of the average college students’ weekend life and experience includes going to parties and having their fair share of drinks, but if a university put a guard on student consumption to prevent binge drinking and alcohol abuse, it would actually bring an obstruction to many college students.
If universities were to eradicate that ability by
…show more content…
As long as college students, legal and underage, drink with responsibility on or off campus without any means of causing disturbance, destruction, or injury to themselves or others, then the schools should not be held responsible nor care, for that matter, of what students can do when it comes to any type of alcohol consumption. Even if to say a college student was to die from alcohol abuse, no matter the age, on campus, the university should still not be liable for the poor choices that student made for it wasn’t the school that made that student drink themselves to death. Each student has a conscious mind and knows how to utilize it, and if a university were to control it just because one immature student chose not to is inadmissible. However, some students may seem irresponsible with drinking habits due to the fact that they are new to

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In Froma Harrop “Stop babysitting College Students,” she argues, that college students are to blame for their drinking habits. She also argues that “prohibiting local businesses from selling alcohol to college students,” or banning companies selling alcohol from sponsoring college events and activities, or preventing champagnes at fundraising events, or family occasions will not stop the college students from drinking.…

    • 227 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    One cannot continue to coddle them any longer, college is the time and place to begin to show how one may act in the adult world. They must learn to deal with the consequences of their actions. Never blame the effect for the cause is the culprit. Take for example, Henry Wechsler, author of “Binge Drinking Must Be Stopped” argues for the banning of alcohol on campus grounds with this statement. “The root of the problem is seldom touched. The focus is on the students, and not on the suppliers and marketers of the alcohol” (31). This argument is invalid, the root of the problem is the students not the business. They are the ones who buy the alcohol and give business to the local bars, pubs and breweries. That would be the same as blaming the tobacco company for teen smoking. Instead colleges should implement harsher plenaties for students caught breaking the rules. That is to expel any students who are caught driving under the influence or buying drinks for anyone under the legal age who are currently enrolled in college. There must be consequences for these actions, this way students are also less likely to binge drink if it means getting kicked out of their school and potentially ruining their career. This in turn will promote more students to drink on campus as opposed to going out to parties and which could result in accidents or lives…

    • 1317 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Binge drinking is a reality of college life in America and perhaps the central focus fraternity life. In Henry Wechsler’s article entitled, “Binge Drinking Must Be Stopped” Wechsler discusses that freshman’s learn during the first week of school where the alcohol and parties are and often has a binge drinking experience even before purchasing a text book. The argument is that freshman’s know where to get alcohol at their first week of school, so they often come back for more and become abuse of alcohol. Wechsler argues that Universities and Colleges presidents should take care of abuse drinking. Wechsler present very little of the opposing side.…

    • 355 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In this article, Sam Tracy talks about the drinking age and its effects on students that attend universities under the age of 21. Tracy questions whether the drinking is doing more harm than good stating that the age limit has not stopped students from drinking, yet it has just forced drinking to be done in the dark. Underage drinking is done in the dark, away from authority, and in heavy doses. More times than not underage drinking is through pre-gaming for a party, or just binge drinking. Tracy also goes on to talk about the effects this has on drunk driving and studies that have been conducted.…

    • 195 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Harrop Vs Wechsler

    • 1161 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Wechsler is the director of the College Alcohol Studies Program at the Harvard School of Public Health. Approaching binge drinking problem on many college campuses, he argues that it must be forbidden. This is due to tragic outcomes such as alcohol poisoning or death resulted from it according to a survey conducted at 140 colleges and universities. One specific example he quotes is the death of Scott Krueger, a first-year student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology due to alcohol poisoning resulted from overindulgent drinking. Then, he examines the causes of the problem. Although it is partly due to the students themselves, he claims that the main causes come from college authorities in the sense that they do not take proper action to stop the problem. This is because they are oblivious to it; they do not take responsibility when it occurs off campus; they do not enforce the policy effectively. Therefore, he suggests a need for greater coordination and prompt action among college presidents, administrators, students, local authorities and…

    • 1161 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    For instance, in a 2006 study by Aaron White, then an assistant professor at the Duke University Medical Center, discovered that 40% of college freshman admitted to engaging in binge drinking, which involves five or more drinks on one occasion, and 20% freshman admitted to consuming between 10 and 15 drinks per session. These results utterly shows how underage college students continue to violate minimum drinking age law, while the negative outcomes produced by drinking is well known. In order to drastically decrease the percentage of underage drinkers in college, the jurisdiction of college campuses should enforce strict policies in concern of the proliferating issue. As without the heavy degree of authority, the rates of deaths and injuries, unwanted sexual experiences, and academic failures, which are all directly and indirectly caused by the alteration of a person’s brain composition due to alcohol, will not…

    • 1643 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dry Campus Research Paper

    • 695 Words
    • 3 Pages

    (Hingson et al., 2009) Furthermore, 400,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 had unprotected sex, and more than 100,000 students report having been too intoxicated to know if they consented to having sex. These shocking statistics lead campuses to ban the use of alcohol on their campuses. Except, eliminating drinking on college campuses is unrealistic because college students, like high school students, are subjected to strong social pressures to drink. Moderation is a more realistic goal for college students to avoid the problems of alcohol abuse (Krohn, 2000). America tried, during its history, to ban alcohol. This brilliant idea was known as prohibition. Prohibition did not prevent drinking, and dry campuses won’t prevent drinking. Therefore, drinking is a reality for college student, and it’s going to happen. Teaching students to make better choices about alcohol can prevent excessive drinking and the social problems that come along with it, such as academic problems, sexual assault, suicide attempts and alcohol abuse. The whole point of graduating college is to earn an education, not develop an alcohol addiction. Colleges can’t ignore or avoid the problems of drinking by having a dry campus policy. Drinking happens, and kids need to be educated on how to be able to deal with…

    • 695 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    As college students, alcohol is just a common and abused drug throughout campus. Drinking plays a big role in college party scenes as well as tailgating. Most freshmen, sophomores and juniors who fall under the age of 21 will still drink because alcohol is present. In addition, this age group would feel pressured to drink in order to be “cool,” to have a good time or to impress someone. Because of reasons such as this, State College and Penn State invest so much money and…

    • 826 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Binge drinking on college campuses affects more than just those that are doing it-teachers, parents and the quality of campus life all suffer when the problem gets out of hand. Putting an end to binge drinking is not easy but it is possible with the right initiatives.…

    • 297 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In July 2008 Mr. John McCardell (Founder, Amethyst Initiative; Former President, Middlebury College) formed the Amethyst Initiative, which states, the drinking age in Maryland should be lowered on the premises of college campuses. A majority of major league college presidents concur with this, because they too believe the drinking age should be reduced, spending thousands of dollars per year to regulate students and ensure the underage students aren’t drinking. Because so much money is put towards patrolling the drinking, it is taken from the money that could’ve been used for educational purposes.…

    • 92 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Most of the reported behaviors showed little to no change until after the legal drinking age was raised in 1987. To prove this, 45% of students reported vomiting after drinking from 1982 to 1987. After the 1987 law change, over 50% of adults reported throwing up. A substantial increase other college related variables increased. Leaving class early after a night of drinking jumped from 10% to almost 15%. Missing class due to being hung-over went from 25% to 30%. Students receiving lower grades because of drinking rose from 5% to 10%. These increases in abusive and irresponsible drinking are due to privately drinking in student dorms and apartments where individuals would gather and play drinking games and proceed to get drunk while outside of adult…

    • 940 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    According to a recent survey conducted by Student Monitor, a college market research company, college student’s state that the three biggest problems on college campuses are the cost, stress and drinking. Now more than ever, college binge drinking is becoming a relevant issue and it is often linked to rape and sexual assault. A recent study conducted by, The Maryland Collaborative to Reduce College Drinking and Related Problems, found “that alcohol use of any kind on campuses across the country each year results in 1,800 deaths; 600,000 injuries; 700,000 assaults by someone under the influence; and nearly 1 million rapes and sexual assaults”. There have been initiatives to lower college tuition and support systems to cope with the stress of school, but no specific and universal…

    • 646 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Lowering Drinking Age

    • 912 Words
    • 4 Pages

    "A comparison of college students attending schools in states that had maintained, for a period of at least ten years, a minimum drinking age of 21 with those in states that had similarly maintained minimum drinking ages below 21 revealed few differences in drinking problems" (Hanson, "The Legal Drinking Age: Science vs. Ideology"). For example, a large study of young people between ages of 16 and 19 in Massachusetts and New York after Massachusetts raised its drinking age revealed that "the average, self-reported daily alcohol consumption in Massachusetts did not decline in comparison with New York" (Hanson, "The Legal Drinking Age: Science vs. Ideology"). College students, young teens and drinking will always be inevitably associated with each other regardless of the circumstances or rules. So what is the point of conceiving and enforcing a policy that is already failed and is doomed to fail? Cocco 3 Administrations cannot stop alcohol abuse, but they cannot ignore it either. With the college administrations ignoring it with the hopes that it will go away is simply unaccepted and should not even be an…

    • 912 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    This law has pushed underage drinking behind closed doors and in unsupervised places that are unsafe for inexperienced drinkers. Statistics show that most who consume under age are indeed binge drinking. Binge drinking is considered having 5 or more alcoholic beverages within a 2 hour time frame. It has been known that there are 100,000 deaths annualy related to binge drinking and alcohol abuse. In July of 2008 John McCardell, a college president, initiated The Amethyst Initiative which supports lowering the national drinking age due to the harmful consequences of binge drinking. McCardell’s goal, along with the other 135 other college presidents who support the initiative, is to encourage new ideas on ways to teach young adults how to make responsible decisions regarding alcohol. It would be much more effective to teach today’s youth the risks and responsibilities involved with alcohol rather than punish them for something nearly all of today’s society is engaging in. Not only would it save our country money to educate, but it would possibly save lives as well. People say that the earlier a person consumes alcohol the more likely they are to have alcohol problems later in life, so educating them and teaching them safe drinking habits will highly reduce these risks. It is much more logical to have people learning to drink in the safety of their own home with parents than in a fraternity…

    • 635 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Drinking Age Analysis

    • 654 Words
    • 3 Pages

    According to elementsbehavioralhealth.com, “almost 73 percent of college students drink at least sometimes, and the average male freshman in college drinks an average of 7.4 alcoholic beverages per week”. Although this is not the case for every college student, this statistic is staggering. Research has also shown that “one third of college students have missed a class because of drinking, and one fifth failed an exam for the same reason” (elementsbehavioralhealth.com). If the drinking age was raised to 25, there would be less of a chance that college students would have access to alcoholic beverages. In opposition, individuals could argue that, in the United States, one is an adult when they reach the age of 18. Therefore, they should legally be allowed to drink and make responsible decisions on their own. The above statistics show that this is not always true and many college-aged students do not make reasonable choices in relation to alcohol…

    • 654 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays