When you were a kid, Halloween was a time of trick-or-treating, dressing up as your favorite superhero or monster, and just spending some quality time with the family. In college, however, it takes on whole new meaning for most students: party! Whether you are a promiscuous bunny or an eerie zombie, the bottom line is, because it is Halloween, you want to go out and have some fun. Here at Stony Brook, sadly, it is easier to say you are going to have fun than to actually do it. Having fun at Stony Brook is a chore.
It seems like we are the only school in which hundreds of students wait for strangers in various lots located throughout the campus to take them to houses with undisclosed addresses to “enjoy themselves for a small fee.” People wait for hours on end for a car to show up and scoop them up to the next house party; most either give up or are ultimately unable to attend because of the overwhelming number of people that managed to hop into cars before them. People seem to have the need to party, and this need takes such a precedence that this Halloween members of Malik, a fraternity on campus, were selling tickets to their event more than a week in advance! Since when did people have to buy tickets to a fraternity party? The mere fact that we have to rely on others and purchase tickets in advance to have fun makes the party scene nerve wracking and worrying. Kevin Skier, a freshman psychology major, put it perfectly: “The point of partying is to relieve stress but the process at Stony Brook is itself stressful.” Well Kevin, maybe we don’t need to change the process, but only ourselves. Maybe we should change our definition of fun. Maybe going to frat parties is not as great as it is made out to be, especially at Stony Brook.
Maybe it’s about time we evolve into a new breed of students. A kind of scholar that likes to have fun but doesn’t feel compelled to do so in one particular way. Yes, it is true that we are here to obtain a degree in order to find jobs that make us a healthy living, but college is more than that. It is about exploring each and every dimension of yourself. This is what people do at parties. They are our chances to let go and enjoy the only life we have. Unfortunately, the party scene here at Stony Brook is flawed greatly, and this gets in the way of everybody’s fun. We all know that Stony Brook University, despite its reputation in the past, has become the furthest thing from a “party school” on this side of the United States, and that is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, that’s the way I and most students in the university would have it. Still, we all need to unwind every so often. Otherwise we would go insane. But, if the process of unwinding adds to our stress, it is really worth it? I have my doubts.
