Binge Drinking Essay

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Natasha Marrs Professor Zintgraff Comp 1 October 20, 2014 Binge Drinking As a Substitute Among College Students In the article, “Binge Drinking as a Substitute” by Kenneth A. Bruffee, the author addresses the topic of binge drinking on college campuses and how fraternities and sororities are the main source of this phenomenon. Bruffee seems to provide a problem and a solution in writing related to the problems of college students binge drinking. He suggests that students are substituting drinking for learning and the root of the problem stems from a need to fit in and belong, which is supplied by the fraternities and sororities, which are the organizations that fuel the parties with binge drinking. In his article he mentions Brooklyn College who offered an alternative to fraternities and sororities to try and get rid of the problem of college students’ binge drinking. Essentially he states that the root of the problem is a need to belong and the fraternities meet that need but they have a side effect of membership that is destructive drinking and other foul activities. The only way to disprove his argument is to eliminate fraternities and sororities and then see if the amount of binge drinking is reduced. Needless to say, Bruffee is fairly safe in his argument because fraternities and sororities are a way of life and culture that isn’t easily brushed away. It is definitely easy seeing his need to “desperately belong”. Like he says, most group learning does not take effect until the major classes of a study are taken. At that point there is usually a core group of students all studying the same subjects and generally intertwined in similar classes. This close proximity and common interests tends to create friendships easily. On the other hand, the first 2-3yrs are a bunch of students all taking general education classes and very
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