If you're interested in ever having a job, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley changing business models and leaving Wall Street without any traditional I-banks is a sign to break out the Grey Goose. Or to smash your head into the table as you start to realize what this past month means for your future financial prospects. Either way, you're killing brain cells. On the bright side (or is it the dark side?), there's always law school or med school, though I'm pretty sure you'll need those brain cells you're busy killing for either of those.
Meanwhile, for Democrats just realizing that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has, according to the very accurate intrade.com futures market, a 47 percent chance of being elected president instead of The One it may be time to cry into some Chardonnay or Chablis. Then you can drunkenly threaten to move to Canada! Once you're there, you can threaten to move to Europe if Stephen Harper gets re-elected.
As for New York baseball fans, boy do we ever have reasons to get drunk. The Yankees just played their last game in the real Yankee Stadium and will miss the playoffs for the first time since 1994, and the Mets are slowly inducing nervous breakdowns among their fan base for the second straight September. Either way, you could probably use a brew. Or maybe three.
Yes, we all have reasons to drink. But those reasons don't mean that dangerous drinking is OK, and it anecdotally appears that dangerous drinking is exactly what's happening. And unless things change, there's a good chance that the line between near-tragedy and national scandal will be breached at some point.
Let me stress the on-campus nature of this problem. Based on the information available to me, it would appear that the the most severely intoxicated students never actually drank at the Street, though some passed out in the street. The problem here is pre-gaming gone wild. That, of course, makes sense: Bad things happen when inexperienced drinkers consume hard liquor.
Freshmen, I know that you get more advice than you want, but here's some you can actually use: How to drink (more) safely. First, assume that you're a lightweight because you probably are. Second, just because you're not drunk yet doesn't mean you haven't had a lot to drink. Most mistakes are made when people taking a large number of shots in succession don't feel drunk, decide that they are invincible and then drink a lot more. Alcohol is not instantaneous; you're not going to feel those drinks for a bit.
Perhaps the most important thing I can tell you is to drink beer. Beer takes longer to drink and involves consuming a much greater quantity of liquid. Both taking your time and having other things in your stomach beside alcohol are good for you. It's also probably not a good idea to play drinking games until you know what you're doing.
I am, however, a realist: Many of you will still act like idiots. Freshman Barry certainly did. What, then, can be done?
One solution would be to give guns to Public Safety. How, you ask, would arming Public Safety solve this problem? Well, a SWAT team on Segways could raid room parties and grab handles of vodka out of hosts' hands. Such a strategy would probably look like the Elian Gonzalez raid, with the liquor standing in for the screaming 6-year-old in that iconic photograph, but that saga worked out well for everyone involved, right?
You know what would actually be a good idea? Having a national-level dialogue that differentiates responsible and idiotic drinking without attacking smarter drinking. If we're being honest, we wouldn't tar all consumption or types of alcohol with the same brush when they're quite different. Helping college students drink more intelligently when they would otherwise drink stupidly is probably a good idea, and it would show how to actually be responsible with alcohol. By sending such a message, perhaps through the Amethyst Initiative, we'd actually educate students, not bore them with insipid and ineffective programs like AlcoholEDU.
That would require delicacy, precision and discretion. So I'm pretty sure that the media, political system and legal systems couldn't handle it.
Barry Caro is a history major from White Plains, N.Y. He can be reached at bcaro@princeton.edu.
Read More
Can a bacchanal Reunions be a sustainability lab?
Darren MilmanThe path to a net-zero Reunions remains uncertain. But Earth Brands’ story proves that the same university known for beer jackets and century-old traditions can also launch the next wave of sustainable solutions.
The path to a net-zero Reunions remains uncertain. But Earth Brands’ story proves that the same university known for beer jackets and century-old traditions can also launch the next wave of sustainable solutions.
$56,000 in debt at graduation is not the financial aid Princeton advertises
Avi CheslerTake my story as an example — despite repeated evidence, both before and after taking out loans, that I would be unable to pay what Princeton asked of me — the University never set a cost that I could truly meet loan-free.
In the Garden State’s service and the service of humanity
Olivia Ragan, Lauren Aung, and Madison LintonIt is important to cultivate in students interest in local and state level change, because it is the most direct way to give back to the New Jersey community that sustains the University.