Posted inCollege, Nonfiction

The Undergraduate Experience in Moderation: Our College Pick

University of Pennsylvania student Manola Gonzalez found a range of sources to talk to about their drinking habits.

College students do most things in excess. They sleep for hours and hours, or not at all. They skip meals during the day only to eat a pizza at midnight. They put off studying until they must cram. Drinking is no different. The goal is not to sip and savor but to gulp and turn up. In a college environment, it’s newsworthy, then, for people not to participate in that lifestyle. University of Pennsylvania student Manola Gonzalez found a range of sources to talk to about their drinking habits. Some don’t drink at all. Others waited till they were legal and then drank only a little. The reporter found a range of approaches to alcohol at Penn and included many points of view in her reporting, which was thorough. The article’s glaring flaw — the number of anonymous sources — also provides an unexpected takeaway: Is not drinking in college so socially crippling that students don’t want to be identified as non-drinkers? 

Sober, So What?

Manola Gonzalez | 34th St. | October 2, 2014 | 6 minutes (1,441 words)

Posted inEditor's Pick

The Undergraduate Experience in Moderation: Our College Pick

Aileen Gallagher | Longreads | October 14, 2014 | words

University of Pennsylvania student Manola Gonzalez found a range of sources to talk to about their drinking habits.