#1 Party School

My initial thoughts, before even listening, thought this would be an underachieving documentary without visual stimulant. But the ambient sound layered over the dialogue is actually more interesting than just seeing it. I think it "unbiases" what is going on; if you were to see the drinking and the partying, one may be inclined to think it is acceptable and fun what they are doing, but the audio only takes the words and sounds being recorded, and this makes listeners to face what is going on much more straight forward for what it is. As I got into the special, I started feeling like this show was mocking us and made us look like assholes, even President Graham. I know I'm taking it personal, but I for one am not like that, my friends are not like that when we go out. I will definitely not contest that are still problems like that, and drinking is major problem, but I realize the only way to make a point, the reporters want to focus on the extreme problems. I think as it is stated in the show, it is part of the culture and tradition, and as much of a problem it is, it is also a unifying and enjoyable. But what is recorded is extremely embarrassing, despite the good arguments that the partying is tradition and this college experience is the only time to do it. It actually made me second guess myself for this weekend though, as to not fuel this bad publicity fire. And I feel really bad for residence, who came to this AMAZING town to enjoy there lives, but have to deal with a bunch of asshole punk-ass kids who cant control themselves or understand their limitations and responsibility. It reminds me of senior week in Myrtle, but everyday, all year. I wish, as he did in the beginning, the narrator would not pinpoint State College as the main problem, but more of a global epidemic of college life that needs to be slowed. Just because we are number one that particular year, we get picked on, when in fact we are no longer number one to Florida, I think, and things are the same if not worse there, as well a other big colleges. As for the questions: The speaker is very good at targeting the many problems with our college, the living conditions for residences, binge drinking, business practices, academic underachievement, and it's very direct. Through narration and personal experience, the issues are very easy to understand and hard to ignore. I think a lot of the special is to reveal the issue, and the reasons it is bad are to be implied, like health/ death risks, residential disturbance interfering with happiness, and academic/ judicial consequences. The episode really captures all the groups affected by the college's rowdy activities in State College. For businesses owners, it's tough to deal with but profitable, students are just so wrapped up in it to worry, residence are shocked but unable to halt the partying, and the cops are still quite relevant. The sound bytes are almost better than quotes in papers, because it gives the words more character. The students just paint a better picture of the attitude as well as the locals quotes representing the resentment/frustration. Those who don't drink are being lumped together with the whole campus, so their perspective (minus the pizza delivery guy) is kind of clouded. I think the report wants to highlight the inherent problems with excessive college partying, and hopefully will help deter the dangerous behaviour and lead to a safer way to have fun.