College freshmen are known across the country for being pretty serious partiers. Tilton and Houston Halls house hundreds of living examples, as annual batches of students enter Tufts eager to finally cut the remaining strands of their umbilical chords and taste their newfound freedom.
The only glitch in the "Animal House" type fantasy, of course, is the controlling power of the Resident Assistant (RA).
Some floors are luckier than others, but it seems like every dorm has at least one particularly strict RA who is sure to reign in the freedom festivities.
Two years later, students are once again bestowed with a new level of independence: the opportunity to live in their own house and to entertain themselves nearly free of the constraints of the Office of Residential Life and Learning. But how do upperclassmen take advantage of such a privilege?
Many students report that their houses often host an ongoing flow of friends and fellow students. As Thursday night turns into late afternoon on Saturday, a sporadic party is bound to emerge, such that students tend to count on impromptu gatherings occurring "somewhere."
"Ten or more people come over at least once a week," senior Claire Freierman said. Given that she is one of 11 housemates, 10 guests can create something of a crowd.
"People come over to play Beirut all of the time," said Freierman's housemate and fellow senior Mary Humphreys. "There's always someone wanting to drink here."
Sticking to this general pattern, bigger parties are often more of an event and take some initiative to be a success.
"We save it for three or four big parties a semester," said senior Michael Sparandara of his two-person apartment in an off-campus house.
Sparandara uses Evites to ensure that between 30-50 students are in attendance, and he tries to "mix the party up" by finding a humorous theme to best engage his guests.
Past themes have included the traditional college Luau, "where one or two girls give-in and wear a coconut bra and the rest of the guests simply don colorful leis," Sparandara
said.
But Sparandara says his biggest success was a popular "Euro-trash" party. "Everyone was just back from abroad and in the mood," he said.
It is reported that this theme has since been reused and has in fact become popular around campus, but Sparandara maintains that his was "the original".
According to many students, other, simpler preparations are essential to ensuring a successful off-campus party.
These include buying a substantial quantity of red plastic cups, hiding or locking away any valuables and removing the knobs from the stove to prevent filling the house with gas vapors.
Students say that it's important to maintain some measure of control during the party over what is going on in your own house.
Senior Brian Potskowski feels that one should at least "make sure that people aren't yelling or peeing off the roof."
Incidents such as the one Potskowski described often get off-campus students in trouble with the Office of Judicial Affairs, and occasionally there is a problem with the police. Senior Mark Sigal and his housemates have had several run-ins with local police - and subsequently with campus authorities - due to noise control and have since developed a kind of strategy to prevent problems.
"One of the downsides of our house is that we live across the street from an elementary school, so there are a lot of families around," Sigal explained.
"So we went to the houses around us and gave them 'the party speech,'" he continued.
According to Sigal, this speech consists of a preliminary admittance of disturbing the peace and a request for some understanding.
"A couple of the neighbors were very receptive, others were not," Sigal said.
Once a house receives several complaints, however, it can develop an identity as a "problem house" in the eyes of local and campus authorities, and this only exacerbates the problem.
According to Sigal, his household identity recently "became a problem".
"On a Friday night when me and my housemates had all been out together at a bar, a house next door to theirs was having a party," he said.
"We stopped in, grabbed drinks and headed back to our house, but the cops arrived just as we were leaving the scene," Sigal continued.
"Some of my housemates were recognized by the cops and written up for noise disturbances," Sigal added.
"Given our past track record, it didn't look good," Sigal added. "They had to plead their case in court."
For reasons like this, many students would prefer not to be the hosts of off-campus parties.
"What's the point?" Freierman said. "We just end up supplying all of the beer and having the mess afterwards."
