John Belushi, chugging a bottle of whiskey while wearing a sweatshirt with the word "College" on the front, is one of the most widely recognized images in American popular culture.
Because of television, advertising and films like "Animal House," drinking on college campuses has become romanticized in society. It has gone beyond the realm of back-parlor taboo to become an accepted cultural mainstay.
Ball State sophomore Dave Heimann shared that view of drinking. He entered college expecting alcohol consumption to be a part of the full experience.
"If you're in high school and you're talking to a college, kid you don't hear about what they did in class," Heimann said. "You hear about what they did on the weekends, the fun they had with their friends. You hear about drinking, and I expected to have that type of social life."
Indeed, 64 percent of the 151 students polled in the Students Speak survey say they drink alcohol during social activities at least once a week, and 34 percent drink more than once a week. Experts say three points have fueled the student-drinking culture: the mimicking of adult behavior, the idea that consumption equals happiness and the pressure to be accepted.
Melinda Messineo, assistant professor of sociology, said the drinking culture on college campuses is modeled after adult behavior.
"To think it is only a college thing is misleading," Messineo said. "Clearly adults drink and young adults see that and equate it with adult behavior. In a way, it reflects that alcohol consumption is a reflection of adult status."
As students go through college, they take on more adult roles, such as living on their own, paying for cars and working. The desire to participate in other adult activities leaves students expecting to drink, especially when other benchmarks of adulthood have already been reached, Messineo said.
"Dying for your country is truly a mark of adult status. Voting for your president is truly a mark of adult status," she said. "The fact that legal alcohol consumption is so many years later is interesting in terms of what we believe is adult versus non-adult behavior."
If alcohol consumption represents adulthood to some students, it holds the promise of happiness to others. Advertising and popular culture have perpetuated the idea that consuming alcohol is acceptable and can make people more desirable.
People learn what society considers acceptable behavior by watching the role models around them. If someone is learning about society from the media, where on television people consume alcohol 15 times more than any other beverage, Messineo said, a person will think that behavior is normal.
"This market economy says fulfillment can be had through consumption," Messineo said. "People in college want to be accepted. They want to be desirable. They want all the good things in life, and they are getting messages from the media and other people that if you drink and buy stuff, you will be happy."
The pressure to be accepted leads many students to drink, said Don Merten, associate professor of anthropology. Students studying college drinking in his applied anthropology class have found that college is a time of experimentation and the loosening of inhibitions related to alcohol helps make it popular among students.
Students leaving the familiarity of their hometowns often feel uncomfortable in their new social surroundings.
"Maybe no one will talk to you, or if you talk to someone, they will reject you in some manner," Merten said. "It helps in a sense to have a little buzz on and feel more outgoing or less inclined to take things more seriously that are negative."
The hunger for acceptance makes students participate in what they believe is the norm, Messineo said. If they believe the norm is drinking to intoxication, they will not feel deviant doing so.
"If not drinking is defined as deviant in your group, you will be defined as a deviant," she said. "It's the strain theory that there is this strain upon you, and you have to decide: Do I want to fit in with the norms of the group, or do I want to be considered an outsider and find another group?"
Along with fitting in, Merten said, students use alcohol to increase their self-image when the stress of college gets to them.
"College for all students, at some point, can be a pretty rugged situation," he said. "You recoup by hanging out with your peers and complaining about professors or work to help that. It's about feeling better about yourself and recouping your self-image after getting beaten down."
For all the reasons students drink, only a major national movement could significantly change the student-drinking culture: lowering the national drinking age, a change in demographics of the people who attend college or a change in American's view of consumption and happiness, Messineo said.
Drinking seems to be as much a part of college as studying or going to class, and as his education progresses, Heimann thinks drinking will remain a part of his total college experience.
"There is not one person who can say they don't know somebody who drinks," Heimann said. "It is just part of the American way."
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