• Art Jahnke

    Senior Contributing Editor

    Art Janke

    Art Jahnke began his career at the Real Paper, a Boston area alternative weekly. He has worked as a writer and editor at Boston Magazine, web editorial director at CXO Media, and executive editor in Marketing & Communications at Boston University, where his work was honored with many awards. Profile

  • Nicolae Ciorogan

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Comments & Discussion

Boston University moderates comments to facilitate an informed, substantive, civil conversation. Abusive, profane, self-promotional, misleading, incoherent or off-topic comments will be rejected. Moderators are staffed during regular business hours (EST) and can only accept comments written in English. Statistics or facts must include a citation or a link to the citation.

There are 22 comments on Here’s Looking at You

  1. ” We were good friends the beginning of my first semester in college and I remember one time we walked him to his job because he was drunk and out of it” why on earth would you walk him drunk to his job?!?

  2. Who said they knew someone who wasn’t drinking enough? That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard! Instead, props to the person who has the self-confidence and doesn’t need to drink to have a good time.

    Also to say drinking is not a problem is to forget the hundreds of students who have gone to the hospital because of drinking related incidents.

    What’s more, 4 years ago, 2 students died and one was permanently injured on Ashford Street from a drinking related house fire. We don’t have a drinking problem? Open your eyes.

  3. “What’s more, 4 years ago, 2 students died and one was permanently injured on Ashford Street from a drinking related house fire.”

    Exactly, 4 years ago. Let’s be honest, all colleges and universities have students enrolled who do not know how to drink responsibly.

  4. If it were legal for 18 year olds to drink and club so long as they maintain high grades, you would see an increase in gpas and a decrease in hospital transports… its basic economics, people

  5. As a resident of Ashford Street, I think the main problem students have with drinking is this new concept of pregaming. Kids drink a whole bottle of alcohol in their dorm rooms because their next step is to wander around Ashford, Gardener, or Linden looking for a party. They aren’t sure if they will be able to consume any more for the rest of the night so they have to get as wasted as possible before heading out. This is why so many students get blackout and have to be taken to the hospital, they are consuming large amounts, and quickly (in order to get their night started and also to avoid being caught by an RA). Many times I haven’t felt safe walking to the convenience store my neighborhood because there are large groups of very intoxicated individuals standing around, either with nowhere to go or looking for trouble. If these students had a place where they could openly and moderately drink with friends, I guarantee you would see much fewer transports and much less arrests.

  6. I think it’s a stretch to say that all medical transports are solely the result of binge drinking. To understand the increase in medical transports, shouldn’t there be an examination into the school’s new medical amnesty policy? That’s something that has been talked about on campus for a long time, and could be an important factor.

    Within the last few years, there has been an increased awareness about medical amnesty, and that increases awareness about calling for help in general. I don’t think it’s right to imply that binge drinking is the sole cause of the increase in medical transports, because it doesn’t acknowledge the possibility that in 2007, more kids under severe effects of alcohol simply didn’t go to the hospital. Or, that in 2009, more kids understood the severity of alcohol poisoning, and the fear of their friend’s current state drove them to request medical assistance.

    Binge drinking is a dangerous activity, and students should recognize it as such. But, without an accurate picture of who DIDN’T call for a medical transport in the last three years, how is it possible to say that an increase in transports means an increase in binge drinking events among students?

  7. I agree that there is a drinking problem on campus, but I think that BU could be doing a lot more to solve this. There is a huge lack of good marketing to get students to make better decisions and have other options. I know a lot of my friends and I would (and do when we find them) take advantage of some free or cheap BU events instead of going out every night of every weekend. For the price of admission it’s a little embarrassing how little BU does to promote other activities that could keep students a little farther away from the beer.

  8. Look at any country with a low or no drinking age. Kids who grow up around alcohol almost always tend to be more responsible with it. They don’t see it as a “forbidden fruit” as EVERY young adult in the United States does. I hear this from international students all the time. They do not understand why American college students go so crazy with alcohol. It is because our laws discriminate against legal adults, making us either wait until we’re 21 or else risk trouble with the police. Drop the drinking age altogether and I bet we would see people start treating alcohol as an accompaniment to social gatherings rather than the primary focus.

  9. I think the term “drinking problem” should be looked at a bit more carefully. It would be safe to say that most of us have done some foolish things while under the influence, and blacking out isn’t necessarily as horrendous or difficult as this article makes it out to be. Acting belligerent every once in a while when you’ve had too much to drink does not constitute a “drinking problem” by a long stretch.

  10. Not be nit-picky, but Oktoberfest actually occurs in September. The last week of the festival is the first week of October, meaning that it has been over for a week. Sorry to kill your cultural reference!

  11. Honestly, while drinking certainly happens at BU, there is no way it is a problem like it is at most other schools. The students are clearly to blame for drinking irresponsibly, but are there better strides that BU can take to deter students from binge drinking every weekend? Instead of throwing the BU Police all over town (where there happens to be plenty of other, more serious crimes occurring, just check your text messages) just to hand out fines to every apartment that makes noise, don’t you think we can focus on other ways to help kids be more responsible? It disappoints me how little say students have in planning and organizing on-campus activities throughout the year. BU Central has so much potential, but thanks to a small budget, they never seem to attract the numbers that they could every weekend. Students come to BU to learn and sometimes that means learning the hard way. If a student blacks out, there is probably a good chance that he or she will try to avoid doing it again. Rather than throwing out fines at houseparties, which probably won’t stop anyone from drinking, let’s make an effort to make it easier for students to organize on-campus concerts and events. I would bet that Relay for Life is the weekend night on campus when the least amount of drinking occurs because it has become a BU tradition where it is cool to participate. Lets do more of that and less targeting and judging.

  12. I will never forget when several of my friends went out to a dance in one of their father’s car. They had all had alcohol before they got into the car and found a gun in the glove compartment (the dad was a traveling salesman). They were playing with it, the gun went off and one of the guys killed his best friend. Years of pain followed for 8 different families as well as so many of us that knew and were friends with all of them. Another very good friend became pregnant while intoxicated and had to quit school and raise a daughter at 18 (freshman year of college), and yet another was arrested twice when friends left him passed out at bars and on the sidewalk (respectively). He was suspended from college for a year, lost his license and has a permanent record and lost a full academic sc holarship, Think about it, __ IT HAPPENS. It is not worth it . . .

  13. This is typical BU BS right here. I remember coming into BU, they fed us a bunch of horror stories about stupid kids getting too drunk and seriously hurting themselves or worse. But seriously, why is it BU’s responsibility to monitor all of our actions and spoon feed us our whole way through college? Another thing about school’s in different countries (where the legal drinking age is 18) is that students are treated much more like adults, and are much more independent. I don’t know if this is specific to BU schools, or all American schools, but I feel suffocated by BU’s tendency to baby it’s student body. Yes, there are students who drink in excess and make stupid decisions, but honestly, that’s students’ decisions, and they can choose to learn from them, or continue to be stupid about it. We are adults. Seriously BU, relax. This is almost as bad as their policy regarding marijuana. You’re really going to keep that on a student’s record for 7 years, even though it’s decriminalized in Mass? But, I digress…

  14. I feel that this is a very bias video because there are only upperclassmen speakers and one of the girls repeats that freshmen are irresponsible drinkers. I’m not going to go on and say that they are the most responsible, but I have attended parties where it was the junior or senior who couldn’t handle his liquor! I live in the freshmen dorms and I have yet to have an encounter with an overly drunk freshmen!

  15. “It’s the month that first-year students begin to get their feet under them, and the month that many trip over those feet after being introduced to college drinking games like beer pong.”

    That’s Beirut, Sah! Beah Pahng is what they play in New York.

  16. “It’s the month that first-year students begin to get their feet under them, and the month that many trip over those feet after being introduced to college drinking games like beer pong.”

    That’s Beirut, Sah! Beah Pahng is what they play in New York.

  17. Is there a drinking problem? Yes, but this has been an issue for decades concerning underage alcohol consumption and to be quite frank I don’t see the problem being resolved anytime soon.

    College is when students are finally away from the pressures of their families and have found a new independence. They no longer have to worry about making their curfue our sneaking behind their parents’ backs to go out with their friends. Alcohol is a sense of liberation, and it will naturally be worse in the younger students because they are not accustomed to this lifestyle.

    We can say “let’s lower the drinking age!” but we all know it won’t be. We can all complain about the police fining every houseparty that makes noise, but we all forget there are non-college residents in Allston too. There is ALWAYS going to be a drinking problem, until kids finally learn how to enjoy alcohol responsibly as they get older. Even then we all know there are adults who consume too much at home, bars, or public events so this isn’t just a ‘University’ issue.

    Obviously, the effects are horrifying, but unfortunately that’s how you learn. The University can try all they can to stop this, but they will not be successful. This is a battle that will continuously be fought, and in the end it is something the student must personally overcome. If they accidentally drink too much it is ON THEM to stop. It is their own fault if they fail to learn from their mistakes.

    I say keep up with the videos, have students talk about themselves or people they know who have had bad experiences, and try to deter as many students as possible. Encourage events on campus, because that’s all you can do. This will always be a problem and we have to accept that some students WILL make bad choices.

  18. ” We were good friends the beginning of my first semester in college and I remember one time we walked him to his job because he was drunk and out of it” why on earth would you walk him drunk to his job?!?

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