Journal Entry #4

The number one party school radio article was an interesting investigative report. It was informative with facts about Penn State and drinking but it was also interesting to hear all of the perspectives heard in the hour long piece. Regarding the questions in harbrace, the writer defines the issue in a way that does make sense to the audience. The audience is fully aware of what is happening throughout the piece because there are interviews and good descriptions of the various events on campus. The reason why the issue needs to be investigated is because drinking is a major part of the culture at Penn State. It said in the article that half of the students here at Penn State regularly binge drink. Alcohol can lead to injury or death in the case of one student, and it was also proven that the residents in State College can get fed up with our crazy actions when we are drunk. It is evident in the article that the issue affects different groups of people in different ways. Residents of State College don't like when students are loud and sloppy when they are drunk. I didn't believe that a student was in a woman's house sleeping in her daughters bed. We can be reckless and cause harm to ourselves and others while intoxicated. However, the issue affects the businesses here at Penn State in a positive way. For example to owner of the popular store here called McClans. had to buy another building because of the business from Penn State students. The interviewer quotes a variety of people. College students are quoted as well as older residents at Penn State. Alumni and business owners are also represented in the article. The piece covered a variety of people, but coaches of the teams here at Penn State did not have their perspectives represented. I think the writer wanted the conclusion to be that drinking at Penn State is part of our lifestyle. It has negatives aspects but it also has some positives too. It doesn't seem to be changing in the near future either. Personally, I like the article because it was interesting and not boring to listen to. They did a good job interviewing a variety of different people to get a lot of different points of view on the subject. I think interviewing college students worked because it gave the students a chance to give their perspective on the issue. However I thought they interviewed too many drunk students. Although it was funny hearing students talk when they were drinking, I sometimes thought that it made the piece look bad and repetitive. I would have liked to hear more students being interviewed when they weren't drinking to see if their point of view is different than when they are drinking. I also like the prologue of the two people just watching what happens on a typical weekend night here because it set up the article nicely and got you interested in what they were going to say in the rest of the article