Greek Social Life - Then and Now

[alum]

I think the social climate can vary from campus to campus even within an era. In my day as well as today, there are party hearty schools, work hard/play hard colleges, and nose-to-the-grindstone institutions. ZooMass earned its nickname a long time ago although it is probably an unjustified monicker at this point.

When I was in school in the 80s, the drinking age was 20 in my home state and 21 in my college state. My neighbor went to Delaware which is very close to the MD border. It was 21 in DE, so they would all get their supplies in MD (age 18) and bring it back to the campus. Now the legal age is 21 making most undergraduates underage. Obviously that doesn't stop the alcohol from flowing on most campuses.

My neighbor's 2 kids, the boy next door and my d. are all undergrads at different universities. 3 are at state schools, 1 is at a private. The four schools could be broken down as 1 nose-to-the-grindstone, 2 wh/ph, and one not so stellar (but not really a party school). They all attended mandatory alcohol awareness, date rape and substance abuse warning classes during freshman orientation. I know my D's school required incoming freshmen to take an online class called alcohol.edu.

I don't remember any drugs happening in our fraternities in college although I was somewhat oblivious. I vaguely recall 2 fraternities having a bit of a rep. but my friends and I never went to those houses. I think there was more drug use in the 70s than in the 80s. IIRC, the students in Fine Arts tended to do the drugs while the rest of us stuck to cheap beer.

Nowadays, my D has mentioned that the two fraternities with the wealthiest boys have a minor cocaine rep but none of the sororities do. Her friend (who is at a very academic school) said the same thing about her state school.

As a woman, the biggest thing that concerns me is the prevalence of Rohypnal on college campuses. Date rape was unheard of when I was in school. It may have happened but once again, I was oblivious. Now it seems to occur everywere and anywhere.