Blog #7

At this point, I am starting to focus more on freshman students learning to adjust to college and drinking patterns. Students just entering college are overwhelmed by this new environment and find it very stressful to juggle academics with their social life. Because of this, they turn to options that will help alleviate their stress. There are both positive and negative options and many times, students focus on the negative ones, such as drinking. Drinking can be understood by examing the psychological state of mind a student is currently in, according to Poor Adjustment to College Life Mediaites the Relationship Between Drinking Motives and Alcohol Consequences: A Look at College Adjustment, Drinking Motives, and Drinking Outcomes. I would like to focus on the reason why college adjustment can be so stressful to students and thus why this makes them turn to drinking. It seems as though drinking has been accepted as something normal and expected of students and it's interesting to see how this relates to privatization. Tuition is so high for many universities but students have learned to simply accept that and even consider it normal. In  From Animal House to Old School: A Multiple Mediation Analysis of the Association Between College Drinking Movie Exposure and Freshman Drinking and its Consequences, it was discovered that movies tend to encourage drinking, even glorify it, and that this is why many students become more interested in alcohol. Even those who were not interested before now become interested because it's very much accepted as a part of the college experience. I find this to be particularly interesting how students who previously looked down upon drinking have suddenly changed their mind simply because society, as a whole, seems to approve. This is very much seen in privatization. People have simply learned to accept high tuition. Even though they are against it, everyone else accepts it as being necessary. I haven't really found any sources that I disagree with and I hope to continue to be able to focus on the freshman college students struggle with adjustment and how this leads to drinking.