Inside the drinking culture at universities.
Feature for Vice life section
Friday night and the cobbled paving of Falmouth Highstreet is full of students catching some fresh air and inhaling various flavours of triple mango and blue razz. The cold air doesn’t stop people from leaving without jackets occupying their shoulders, the girls borderline naked due to lack of fabric and men walking round in their Ralph Lauren polos from their father's wardrobe.
As the night progresses it becomes rowdier, more students occupy the floor outside the clubs rather than the dance floor. Men stumble to the closest pier to urinate off and partake in sniffing substances. People start to get turned away at the door due to the level of intoxicity and are told to sober up before they try again, others are dragged out after puking in the bathrooms, so the street starts to become the real party. Friends meet friends, enemies find enemies and sometimes a fight starts.
“I believe there is a massive drinking culture, and there is a big implication that you have to drink to have fun” Ethan Fox, student at Falmouth University states.
Students at Falmouth University only have three semi-decent clubs which stay open till three am. Most students throughout their studies never set foot inside one due to stories that have accumulated from inside those walls and rumoured carpeted floors.
Pubs are where you can find most students, from pub quizzes to group socials for societies normally entailing costumes and even lecturers plod along to the pub with students after a week of gruelling education. Pubs like FIVE’S, Grapes, and Wetherspoons always seem to have a buzz to them no matter the day, time, or weather.
Two lads moved to Falmouth after seeing one of their friends enjoying university life. They wanted to get in on the action but sadly it didn’t live up to the fantasy and they have left education due to various reasons. “Hearing about freshers sounded good but when coming here it didn’t live up to the hype.” They have decided to stay in Falmouth but work full-time as they enjoy the atmosphere that comes with the seaside town, still indulging in the drinking culture.
A report by SOS, a student led education charity, in 2022 conducted that almost two thirds of students drink at a friend's house before going out and 81% agreed that getting drunk and drinking is a part of university culture.
The Student Union (SU) at Falmouth university work closely with an organization called ‘We Are with You’ which is charity that offers support when it comes to alcohol, drugs and mental health. Getting a response from ‘We Are with You’ took weeks. They also did not approve the responses to questions asking about the safety of students surrounding the drinking culture at universities and how they support the students that do ask for help. No wonder students suffer in silence when organizations that are set up to help those in need take weeks to reply.
Even on the Penryn campus a bar is situated meters away from study spots tempting students away from their work “I would sometimes study there but I’d also be drinking a pint whilst doing work, I’d end up getting distracted and play pool” says one student who lived on campus throughout his first year.
I spoke to multiple students about consuming alcohol on a regular basis, their responses varied. One commented on how it helps to make new friends when you arrive in a new town, he also mentioned how it lets him express his emotions and talk more openly about his struggles.
Another student expressed “Drinking feels like a forced part of uni culture and it's hard to fit in without drink, let alone that there's not much else to do around here. I also feel like I've seen myself and my mates fall into bad habits that effected my health and my bank account.”
Local hotspots in the university town feed into the drinking culture massively. Monday is ‘Jazz Night’ at Chintz followed by ‘Emo Night’ at Kings and ‘Drag Night’ at Mango’s, a very unexpected combination of events on the first day of the week. Wednesdays act as ‘Student Nights’ where £1 shots are consumed at Mango’s and later regretted whilst attending Thursday lectures. There is simply no other entertainment for the youths, unless you want to pay £9 for a cinema ticket or £25 to escape a room.
Even Tom Holland, also known as this generation's Spiderman, is sober after coming to terms with the fact that he depended on alcohol to get him through social situations. “Why am I enslaved to this drink?” He talks on the podcast ‘On Purpose’ about overcoming anxiety and stopping the reliability that comes with having a few drinks, eventually swapping it out for healthier alternatives. The actor mentions how he went on his own journey with alcohol dependency which led to sobriety, which works for him.
Recently, there has been a lot more social media coverage on drinking culture in the UK. TikToker ‘Whatzaraloves’ started a series called Taboo on the Bus where she shares her stances on trends and hot topics. She had an episode on how deep rooted the drinking and drug culture is imbedded into UK culture and university culture. “I think there will be a lot more people that want to go sober especially in this like uni capacity but don’t because of the fear of like social exclusion and missing out, and that’s not me saying you can't have fun if you don’t drink because absolutely not, but there's such a correlation between people associating being sober with being boring, which isn't true”
Sadly, the idyllic town comes with its qualms. With little to do besides drink and sit on the beach when the weather decides to behave (even that tempts people into buying a few drinks from the Co-op opposite) students are left with only one way to socialize with new friends. With being sober is becoming more of a trend in society maybe the university town will offer more to these students who opt out of drinking, keeping in mind student funds and not pricing activities such as pottery painting or escape rooms extortionately high.