A Waste of Time

Some things are good in concept but awful in practice. Like “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang,” Sprite Remix, and Communism. Or Alcohol Edu, the “online prevention program” that all rising freshman were required to suffer through this year to teach us how not to kill ourselves by alcohol. A course which supposedly takes “2-3 hours to complete,” Alcohol Edu is so rife with technical errors and misleading information that it is more likely to be a complete waste of twice that amount of time.

First of all, the online course’s useless information and unenlightening case studies are unlikely to save us from death by the bottle. It should be removed from freshman’s list of requirements, which already contains a far better organized and more useful alcohol education program: the Freshman Residential Education (FRED) lectures.

Clearly, Harvard is currently looking to decrease cases of student overindulgence—the College’s Committee on Social Clubs recently recommended that Harvard introduce student group responsibility for dangerous drunkenness. But this is a misguided approach if the College does not both address the faults of its alcohol education system and build on its strengths, such as the FRED.

I understand that having freshmen debriefed on the dangers of drinking before they arrive on campus must seem appealing. Yet I can’t imagine the administration really wants to impose this kind of frustration. Far from educating us naïve first-years on the perils of alcohol, it merely annoys the hell out of us. It was not uncommon for Alcohol Edu to time out several times in one section (approximately 15 minutes work), as happened to me on several occasions.

The “test out” option on the Alcohol Edu mother site has also never worked for anyone to my knowledge, which forces informed students to laboriously relearn what we were taught during high school health class. This technical Titanic is then followed by something even worse: the case studies.

Alcohol Edu’s case studies are, to put it bluntly, stupid and insulting. Their use of stock stereotypes is repulsive. The blond semi-anorexic sorority girl? The black athletics recruit? Please. Spare me. Do I care that some imaginary red-haired girl is worried that after a drunken one-night stand with a sketchy upperclassman, she might have an infection in her nether regions? Watch out, kids—especially if you’re female! Drunken sex with strangers is bad and will give you nasty diseases.

The program should instead just present the facts straight. Freshmen aren’t stupid. We don’t need to hear simplistic modern-day fairytales-gone-wrong before we can make decisions about our own health.

But Alcohol Edu’s worst offense is its selective omission of facts. When the program claims that eating food won’t lower your blood-alcohol content, they neglect to mention that it certainly will keep your BAC from rising. The same is true of throwing up. The program should tell everything, without the misleading subterfuge.

Its use is even more frustrating given that the College already has other, better alcohol education programs. FRED gives information without obfuscating the truth. Its lecturers explain what freshmen need to know by highlighting the risks of drinking and, yet, recognizing that many will drink, describing how best to drink responsibly. An hour’s lecture one night might seem inconvenient, but it’s immeasurably better than the pain of Alcohol Edu.

I have no quarrel with alcohol education, merely with needless hours spent yelling at my computer. It is not that alcohol education is uncalled for, but rather that there has to be a better way than this terrible program, so frustrating it’s bound to drive the entire freshman class to binge-drinking with its inanity.

I don’t mind learning the facts. It is important to know the risks of drinking, and how to do so sensibly. But get rid of Alcohol Edu. It belongs with the XFL and Velcro-sole shoes in the heaven for ideas that could never be actualized. FRED is the way of the future.



Sanders I. Bernstein ’10, a Crimson arts comper, lives in Pennypacker Hall.