a guide for college students

T asked for my advice to college students. my sentiments are simple: your experience is what you make it. make mistakes, get in (a little) trouble, make friends, enjoy being dirt poor and having someone else foot the bill, do your part and get a part-time job, fall in love, fall out of love, join clubs, go to parties, take leadership positions, fight with your roommate, make up with your roommate, fail a course. ok, maybe not that last one. but honestly, i feel like i did all of that and more that i cant remember. i went SOMEWHERE on every spring break except when i got my wisdom teeth taken out. i had adventures (read i got lost a lot). i learned how to be on my own but still knowing i had a fallback with my family. everyone's college experience is unique but everyone would agree that no other time in their life was like it. best wishes!

babies and bottles

so some well-known college and university presidents are advocating for a lower drinking age. shout out to Morehouse being considered a big name school by CNN. so what if it's probably due to the fact that the last graduating class at this historically black institution had a white valedictorian. 

these people think it will be better if 18-year-olds were allowed to legally purchase libations. MADD accuses them of shirking their responsibilities and looking for an easy way out (i agree). it's just a big ass coincidence that 18 is also the age of most traditional freshman college students. MADD and I feel like it's a poor solution to a continuing violation of a rule that apparently administrators are tired of failing to enforce. the presidents argue that if the students were legally able to drink, they would not binge and get themselves into other trouble because of the "excitement"... or some crap. i'm trying to paraphrase their lame justification but i guess it has to first make sense to me for me to do that. 

obviously, many people drink before they are of legal age of consumption. i will admit to being one of those people. but imagine if the stuff was just readily available? no getting older friends to make purchases. no going through the process of getting an authentic-looking fake ID. just completely hassel-free? that's unacceptable. i can recall my maturity level at 18, and while i'm more mature than most, i was certainly not all there. and yes, i know that there was a time when 18 was the legal drinking age. that changed for a reason. let's not repeat history. plus, that was a bit of a different time. not nearly as many cars are on the road and so many other factors were probably not present. 

would it be better or worse if 18-year-olds were legally able to purchase alcoholic beverages?