With finals rapidly approaching, Tufts students are experiencing academic intensity that can be as brutal and draining as the cold New England air. With winter finals also comes the familiar tradition of the Naked Quad Run, when a large segment of a stressed-out student body is able to let loose and have fun before exams hit full force.
Before Jumbos pick up their party hats, however, they should think about the effects that their partying has on both the host community and the University.
Students often take great pride in having a "work hard, party hard" ethic while on the Hill. After hitting the books and crunching numbers all week, they believe that they are entitled to unwind when the weekend rolls around.
This argument in and of itself is not problematic, and there are very few people who think that they don't deserve a small break from their work. The problem is when a small break, a little party and a few too many drinks combine to transform students into loud and obnoxious drunkards. All too often, it seems that Jumbos let having a good time affect being good people and good neighbors. This is harmful to students as individuals, to the University community as a whole and to our non-Tufts neighbors.
Of course, individual students risk personal harm and perhaps criminal or University sanctions when the party gets out of control. Perhaps more important - as well as less obvious - is that asinine students who lose control put having another beer before maintaining a basic sense of humanity. This pleasure-seeking behavior is not only unlikely to result in pleasure, but is also liable to result in torn friendships and angry neighbors.
Every individual who behaves badly while partying is contributing to a negative perception of this University. Everyone at this school, and most people in the area, know that Tufts is one of the best schools around. The problem is that on party nights, students behave less like the cream of America's academic crop and more like the bottom of the barrel. Think about the University you would want your parents to see: the one that exists in the middle of the week or the one with the scattered beer cans and discarded cases that litter this campus on Sunday mornings.
The neighbors, of course, notice, and who could blame them? Who would want to wake up at 2 a.m. to find a belligerent stranger vomiting on their lawn? These people work hard and expect to spend their weekends as they please, without having to deal with herds of drunken students trampling their lawns. They are absolutely justified in these expectations.
This is not to suggest that Tufts students should not have a good time; it is merely to emphasize that diversion should not come at the expense of humanity and humility. Two years ago at the Naked Quad Run, the community saw what happens when a group of students gets too carried away - students get hurt, traditions are threatened and neighbors become disgusted. It is now up to the Jumbos to show that while they may occasionally party hard, they will always party right.
