American students push indulgence to the edge

Say a 17-year-old Czech student goes to a club with a bunch of his friends one Friday night. Though the drinking age is 18 here, the student walks in, makes a comment to the bouncer, the two share a smile and he and his buddies are in.

Now imagine this with a 17-year-old American testing his luck at a bar in the heart of New York. The bouncer takes one look, spots the fake ID, rips it in half and hands it back. So it will go for the next four years.

Both boys look and act the same. Yet one strolls in while the other’s shut out of the biggest party of the weekend. It wasn’t always like this.

The drinking age was once 18 in America, but President Ronald Reagan signed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984, which unified all 50 states in banning drinking and buying alcohol until age 21. Meanwhile students such as Michael Weisberg, now studying in Barcelona, have been flocking to foreign countries in search of legal tipple.

“We are allowed to go to war and serve our country but not have a beer with my old man?" asks Weisberg. “Unbelievable.”

He and many other Americans who have the opportunity to study abroad during their college experience. The influence, beyond the culture of the city that they are in, is meeting new people, seeing other countries and of course; experiencing the nightlife.

“One of the main reasons that I am abroad is to experience the club scene in Europe. Unfortunately, I am doing this all under aged,” says Anglo American University student Ian Engoran.

Engoran has a point. Even in Prague, students have a myriad of choices to spend their nights as Prague is one of the best destinations to party.

“Even as a visitor, Prague overwhelmed me with inexpensive, yet delicious beer,” says Jake Lesser, a Barcelona native this semester who also enjoyed his trip to Prague.

“Maybe I had a hangover or two, but so what? Partying at night is what it’s all about.”

To most, this may not make much sense. But the general consensus amongst American exchange students studying at Anglo American and other universities across the world remains that having a good night, which includes drinking excessively and sometimes blacking out, outweighs the importance of the horrific hangover that awaits the next morning.

The term blackout is defined as a person that becomes so drunk that they wake up the next morning with temporary amnesia and no recollection of what they did the previous night. Being “blackout drunk” primarily results from binge drinking, something particularly common in college students.

Binge drinking, as it’s commonly referred to, can affect physical health anywhere from loss of balance to liver issues andcan affect your mood and memory which can eventually lead to serious mental health problems.

In addition to blacking out, there is browning out, where, instead of having complete amnesia, you remember bits and pieces of your night but not the entire thing.

“Browning out is becoming more and more popular as people enjoy some of the memory loss without losing the entire night,” AAU student Eric Gordon explains.

Hangover is a term that most of us are unfortunately familiar with. Defined as disagreeable aftereffects from the use of alcohol from pounding headaches to major dehydration, they come in bunches and, simply put, are not fun.

“When I drink excessively, I get the spins, meaning that my entire world is legitimately spinning,” says 22-year-old Benjamin Kruger of London. “But when I get drunk enough to become socially irresponsible to society, what can I expect?”

There is another side of this phenomenon of drinking excessively. Other than some of the students studying all over the world, certain people, such as Samuel Maxwell, don’t see the appeal in waking up the next morning with a blistering headache.

“I don’t really like to ruin the next day and don’t feel a need to forget my nights,” says Maxwell. “I am all for having a good time don’t get me wrong, but I don’t like being sloppy at night to feel sloppy the next day.”

He may have a point. Because Europeans are able to drink legally at 18, some don’t necessarily feel the need to drink in excess due to how easy it is in general for them to drink on a more than regular basis. Additionally, because they have the experience drinking alcohol, they aren’t as big of a drunken mess trying to make up for lost time like some American’s who are trying to blackout.

Although hangovers and blacking out has become a common phenomenon amongst the student body across Americans, the main question for Europeans is: why does it remain important for Americans to study in this continent to have a good time? “To drink! Drinking legally is such a big deal considering all of the headaches you have back home as a minor,” responds Kruger.

Moral of the story: American college students take their drinking very seriously and find it almost unbearable to be 20 years old in the states. Just another reason to spend time abroad and experience some of the best times of our young lives.