There are many drinking occasions you must participate in when you become a university student. Many students encounter such drinking situations through various events such as an OT, a lecture-starting party, a reception for welcoming freshmen, and a field trip. Furthermore, after the midterms in May, more and more drinking parties are held.
A proper amount of alcohol makes people feel good and helps them to promote friendship, but too much booze provokes mistakes and leads to accidents.
The global liquor enterprise, Diageo Korea, conducted a survey targeting 1,257 university students this February. According to the survey, 68.3% of the respondents(848 people) have answered ¡®Yes¡¯ to the question, ¡°Do university students¡¯ drinking-methods have a problem?¡±
A policeman of Sa-chang police box, near CBNU, said, ¡°On average, almost 5 to 6 students visit our substation every day. Most of the students are found on the road at around 2 a.m, unable to withstand the alcohol. Some even visit the police box after a quarrel with other people after a trivial dispute, like a shoulder collision in the bathroom. I think these things happen because most university students do not properly conceive their drinking method and just drink by the barrel, even after they become an adult.¡±
To understand the true drinking condition of our fellow students, we have conducted a survey of 113 CBNU students. To the question, ¡°Are the drinking methods of university students these days right?¡±, more than half(53.1%) replied that ¡®they are not right.¡¯ However, on the question, ¡°How much do you drink?¡±, 68.1% replied ¡®I drink until I feel good¡¯, and 21.2% replied ¡®I drink until I get drunk.¡¯ Also, more than half(57.3%) replied they don¡¯t have a drinking habit, but almost half(42.7%) replied they have one. Among these students, 42.6% replied that they can fix their problem themselves, 31.6% claimed they don¡¯t feel any necessity to change, and 23.4% students said they required help from others. You can see that some students cannot regulate their drinking methods by themselves.
On the question, ¡°Do students have to be educated regarding drinking manners?¡±, most of the respondents(94.7%) said they need it. The first reason is that they need to prevent accidents caused by drinking, and the second reason is that they need education because some day they could get seduced by Korea¡¯s alcohol offering culture. There is proof that there are some students who have to overdrink due to the culture. A CBNU student, Kim Se-ryeun(¡¯14, Dept. of Biology), said, ¡°Seniors and friends pressured me when I tried not to drink. There are people who hand me a cup, or even mock me, so I had to drink excessively even though I didn¡¯t want to drink.¡±
The ratio of the survey shows us a similar tendency. 54% claimed that they had learned about drinking etiquette, while 45% claimed that they never had. Also, 77% claimed that their first drinking experience was when they were adolescents. Only 23% experienced alcohol after entering a university. It means that most students have been drunk before when they were immature, and their habits could have led them to drink heavily after becoming an adult. Therefore, due to the drinking incidents caused by university students every year, there must be proper education, and the students must be more cautious about drinking.
Although drinking alcohol after being an adult provides freedom and pleasure, one must be cautious not to make a mistake that would leave regret for the rest of one¡¯s life. Moreover, since most of the midterms have ended these days, many students might feel relieved and drink freely. However, as the saying goes, ¡®Alcohol drinks the man,¡¯ one must possess an ability to control oneself.