Brown: Keep the party alive
There’s a time for study and a time for party too
By Jesse Brown (Contact)
Thursday, October 25th, 2007
Recently, the University of Kansas has been omitted from the Princeton Review’s list of the top party schools. While I am proud to hear about the academic excellence of our school, I do not see why our partying habits should change. One week of school could be stressful enough that partying on the weekend and taking a load off is earned, only to refuel the thinking caps on Sunday. Obviously, there are exceptions such as having a major test that coming Monday, but hey, a few beers just might help you relax and relieve the stress that college creates.
While there are the retorts of, “we don’t care what people think about us,” we should care because we are being judged by and compared to our peers, which in this country, most cases get settled by. The students at the University are a proud student body, and an example of their pride is displayed passionately at sporting events against our fellow peers at rival schools. I would like to imagine that a KU student would hold that passion in everything he or she does, whether it’s sports, academics or partying. I know I want it to look like the University is a fun school to go to, where you could get a good education and plenty of good memories to take with you into adulthood.
I’m not advocating for us to become raging alcoholics and desperate junkies, but I know I don’t want to look like lame ducks who don’t know how to have a good time. Nevertheless, the administration is gushing. We have become the good little robots that college likes to program when we will leave and become law-abiding citizens while we get handled daily, in the work week that is, by the Man. And since when is the administration and the student voice the same?
Another recent event is the elicited complaints from fans to the Athletics Department, where at college football games, students yell an obscenity. Associate Athletics Director Jim Marchiony was stated as saying, “We would hope that the student body could be more creative than that. That sentence takes no intelligence and no creativity to yell.”
I don’t think anybody, whether they are a student or an enthusiastic spectator, comes to a football game, watching guys beat each other up, and thinks, “What can I say to come off as intelligent and creative?” A football game is not the same as going to a Montel Williams show to discuss domestic abuse between partners. Everybody comes to a football game to see an exciting and violent display of athletes competing against each other; academics are the last thing on fans’ minds when they are watching a football game.
Is it wrong that a fan shows passion by yelling a phrase from a comedy movie? Are we, the student body, going to be pushed into what we can and can’t say? Are we going to be pushed into a mold that makes us sheep here at the University, or are we going to express our passion, individuality and insatiable desire to party? There is a time to study, there is a time to work, but there is also a time to party.
Brown is a Lee’s Summit, Mo., junior in journalism.
Discussion
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True, there is a happy medium between partying too hard and studying too hard. However, most of the students I've encountered haven't found that medium. I'd be rich if I had a dime for everytime I heard someone say, "Oh dude, I'm so hungover I can't even concentrate. That party last night was wild!" Having one or two beers to unwind on a Friday night is one thing. Getting smashed every opportunity you get is something else all together!
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