Beer pong, keggers and pub nights are a regular part of campus life for the vast majority of college students. According to a study conducted in 2000 by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 88 percent of college students, including those under the legal drinking age, have consumed alcohol.
So what about the measly 12 percent who abstain?
Junior Maris Mann-Stadt said her decision to abstain from alcohol stems from personal preferences.
"I don't really have any interest in it," Mann-Stadt said. "I don't like the taste of alcohol, and I don't see a point in drinking if I don't like the taste of it. I also don't like to not be in control of myself, and if I'm under the influence, I have less control over what I do."
Traumatic experiences experimenting with alcohol led junior Melissa Romanus to avoid drinking for several years.
"In my junior year of high school, I got alcohol poisoning the first time I ever drank and almost died," Romanus said. "I didn't drink for a very long time and was kind of sickened by the smell and stuff."
For junior Shana Hurley, the reasons are slightly more ideological.
"I feel uncomfortable with the binge drinking culture in college because it puts people in situations that they wouldn't otherwise allow themselves to be in. While I respect other people's choice to do that, and I don't disrespect them, it's just not for me," she said.
Hurley explained that her attitude toward alcohol also stemmed from her connection to straight-edge culture. Straight edge, a term originally coined by 1980s punk band Minor Threat, refers to a lifestyle whose adherents don't drink, smoke or have promiscuous sex.
"I like straight edge hardcore," she said. "At an important age in my life, I found a community of people who didn't drink or do drugs and found a niche with people who felt the way I did."
Finding an alcohol-free niche on campus manifests itself in different ways for different students. Junior Ben Smith, who is also a copy editor for the Daily, requested a Healthy Living floor for his freshman year and has lived in substance-free housing ever since.
"You get a real community on Healthy Living that you don't get on other floors," Smith said. "You can have a great party and hang out with friends without being drunk."
Romanus found similar-minded people through the Tufts Alternatives e-list during her freshman year, which sent out weekly suggestions of alternative activities to drinking. Then, she, along with fellow junior Gabrielle Green, began maintaining a Tufts Alternatives blog, which received school funding until recently.
Because of their current lack of funding, the two students are in the process of reconstructing the blog.
"Gabrielle and I wanted to keep it up as a thing for kids to do that doesn't involve drinking. It had cool things happening around the area that people might not know about," Romanus said. "In talking to people, a lot of times they don't know how to get around and do things off campus. [The blog had] alternatives if you don't drink and if you don't want to go out and party on the weekends."
Both Hurley and Mann-Stadt said they regularly attend parties with friends who drink.
"I go to parties a lot, almost every weekend. I like to joke that I'm never drunk enough for sticky, sweaty frat parties, but I think that people who do drink feel that way sometimes too," Hurley said. "Whenever I'm with my friends who are drinking, I'm still having fun because I'm with my friends."
While Smith said he attends large events on campus such as Fall Ball, he tends to avoid parties where alcohol is the main focus, which can sometimes be a tough task.
"There are very few parties that don't involve alcohol, but I think a lot of the people who don't drink aren't big partiers anyway," he said.
Smith said that because he lives on a Healthy Living floor, many of his friends do not drink.
"It's definitely a mix of people. I don't really hold [drinking] against other people in terms of friendships, but because I live near people who don't drink, that's the majority [of my friends]," he said.
Still, pressure from friends who do drink can be a challenge in the college setting.
"Three of my good friends have a bounty on my head that whoever gets me trashed first will win money. It's a joke, and they respect my decision; it's never serious," Hurley said.
"Freshman year, people were like, ‘Are you sure you don't want to drink?' It has petered off though," Mann-Stadt said. "You have to have a sense of humor about it, and you can't get angry every time people do it."
Even though Hurley doesn't mind when her peers drink — "I don't have a stick up my butt about it" — she did express some frustration at the lack of alternatives to the social scene.
"I'll be careful with my words. I wish there were more things to do that didn't involve alcohol, but I don't wish to say there should be more programming without alcohol. The school and student organizations do a good job making sure there's stuff to do on campus; it's just usually over by 11," she said. "It's more, to me, that Boston as a city isn't that conducive to not drinking. I love going to straight edge hardcore shows; you can go to concerts, but in New York you can just go out, walk around, and there's something open 24 hours. In Boston, the city doesn't lend itself to that."
Recently, college drinking has been in the news with the announcement of the Amethyst Initiative, whose members — over 100 college presidents, including Tufts president Larry Bacow — are calling for greater discussion on whether to reduce the drinking age from 21 to 18.
Students who currently don't drink at college offered unique perspectives on this idea.
"My objection with drinking has a lot to do with binge drinking and social culture, so if lowering the age would help people become more normalized towards drinking and that's what the inquiry is about in the first place, then I think it's a good idea," Hurley said.
Taking the rebellion out of drinking could be a positive step, Smith said.
"Generally, I think lowering the drinking age would be a good idea," he said. "It would reduce the impetus to drink underage. When you get to college, you can break the law and go wild, and that's exciting to people."
Mann-Stadt said, "I think it's a good idea. I don't know how well it would happen, but it would be interesting to try."
Hurley said for those who do drink and for those who choose not to, it is important to respect the choices that people make.
"I think there's a contingency of people who don't drink, but they spend a lot of time being judgmental of those who do and don't leave their room much," she said. "You have to learn how to be responsible and respectful. On one hand that means [if you drink], not drinking so much that you get TEMS'd or you get belligerent or aggressive. [If you don't drink], that means letting your guard down to go to a party."
