Don't Need to Get Drunk to Have a Good Time

Introduction
I kind of knew this was where I wanted to be. In high school and junior high, I was kind of preppy. You get that a lot here. Obviously, the popped collar and the polo.

Oxford, they have their bars and they have their places where people can go to eat and to hang out. It’s not like NY or Chicago, but it’s a little town so you do what you can.

I’m involved in music and I’m in a bunch of organizations; the Miami Men’s Glee Club is so strong here on campus. We have concerts, we have gigs, there are a cappella groups, there’s always an event to go to.

Miami tries to do an After Dark sort of thing. It gets kids out and about. It kind of works, kind of doesn’t, but you know, it’s nice to have that.

The Stereotypes, I don’t know, I mean preppy is one of the big things here…We have this slogan about diversity or whatever and there’s no diversity here.

We have the whole diversity thing which doesn’t work at all…I’m very preppy and one of the things is you gotta look nice and appearance is key here sometimes. The big stereotype is how rich can I look.

I feel that Miami is one of those schools that like you really have to learn to be outgoing. And if you don’t learn to be outgoing and like friendly right off the bat, you’re not going to survive.

I thought I was outgoing until I got here and then I kind of laid back a little bit, but I had to learn it. I had to make friends. And once you get into a good group of people, you just like invest. You need to be friendly, you need to be like “hey, what’s up man, how are you?” or you’re not going to survive. So I really think that the student body here is very friendly and just wanting to make first years feel kind of comfortable to be here.

I’m not really into the politics or whatever. I just kind of like let it go, but we have huge debate teams.

Campus Life and Social Life
The Glee Club, actually was one of those things that I didn’t actually think I’d be a part of. I have never been a part of an all-male choir and I kind of thought, you know you get the stereotypes like what a bunch of dorks, a bunch of guys singing or whatever. And it really isn’t. We have a really strong female fan base. Most of the guys absolutely love Glee Club, I’m going to be the president next year. Glee Club is more diverse than the campus sometimes and I feel that that is such a part of this campus anyway.

I’m a music major and what we do is, they give us a little sheet at the end of freshman orientation and they say, these are the classes that you have to take in order to graduate in 4 years. Well that’s impossible. They say oh you can do it in 4 years, but no, you really can’t.

I had a horrible time with the Miami Plan because there were just classes that I personally don’t want to take. And like I’m going into Music, so why would I take science, or why would I take all these other classes? I think it’s a good idea to be well-rounded, a well-rounded student to make sure you know different things.

I had 23 credit hours last semester and it about killed me. That’s because Miami Plan, thematic sequence. And I just want to get into my major and stick in there and not have to do a thousand things.

The professors make it known that you can go and like they have cell phone #’s and emails, phone numbers, home phone #, for you to like call them and be like “Hey, I don’t get this, help me.” I had one professor that was really rude and he as actually in the department, but he doesn’t teach here anymore so whatever.

The TA’s have been okay. We had a horrible one last semester. He just, he was very lazy, he didn’t come all the time, we didn’t know where he was and we didn’t get our papers back for a long time.

I always here the whole, oh the Western kids are freaks and I personally have never some across that. I know a lot of people in Western.

Parking is my least favorite thing by far. As a freshman, you can’t have your car up here unless you live like 200 miles, but then you have to park it like so far away from campus that it’s ridiculous. A lot of people make fun of it, but you’d kill someone for a red pass here. Just because a red pass, you can park anywhere on campus. They give you these little purple passes when you’re like a junior or senior and it just says like after 4 your can park here and here and then whatever. So I think Parking, the parking services people are crazy. Academics
There are a lot of dark places at Miami, anyway which you’d think like, “Why is there not a light here, why is there like 70 lights here, but there’s nothing over there. I think that’s one of the problems they have anyway just because they talk about like “don’t walk alone, don’t do this”, well, get a light there, get a light there and we wouldn’t do that.

It kind of felt for me like I was cutting the cord from my parents. Like I can live by myself, I can live with roommates, I can pay bills. And personally, I think it’s cheaper than living in the dorms. We lived over at Miami commons and it was a 4 bedroom place with 2 bathrooms, a full kitchen, it was fully furnished and it was $1600 a semester and the dorms were like $2000/2100. No one’s watching you like “you can’t drink, or you can’t do that” so I don’t know, I love housing off-campus so much better.

Student Body
The food’s amazing. I think Bell Tower is great. I’m always a fan of the Buffet’s like they have Erikson and Harris…Erikson was the big place. And I mean Schriver, Tuffy’s is open 24 hours so you could go there in the middle of the night and get something to eat.

I don’t like the meal plans though. Meal plan was one of the roughest things is they tell you to get Passport when you’re a freshman, which means that you have 3 square meals, but if you don’t get that meal in the amt of time that they give you, you don’t eat that meal that day so it was kind of a waste. And then you get Diplomat, which gives you a bunch of discounts, but you pay $1,000 for it. So it’s kind of like a double edged sword, but the food is fabulous here.

We have this little myth that if you kiss on the Upper March at midnight, with the light going that you’re destined to get married or whatever and we actually have a lot of Miami parents who come back and are like, “oh, we fell in love here and blah, blah, blah,” like they got married, their kids go here, I mean, it’s the whole chain of Miami. But it’s one of those myths people like to remember and it’s really cute that people do that and think about that.

I try to limit myself to drinking but when I do, like it’s an awesome time.

Glee Club—we have awesome parties. And if you talk to people about it they’ll definitely tell you, you know Glee Club is the place to be if you want to go drink or just hang out with a bunch of guys and girls. We’re all responsible gentlemen. We’re not going to go crazy and someone’s going to go vomit somewhere randomly or die, so I mean the parties here, they’re off the hook, but we have responsible people.

In Closing...
I’ve heard people say we have Crystal Meth here and we have Coke here and like even Heroin, and I was just like, I never see it, don’t know how people know about it or whatever, it’s not prominent at all.

Marijuana is a big thing, I think here, I know a lot of friends who smoke it or whatever, but it doesn’t engulf anybody’s life. I don’t think anybody’s like, “oh I gotta get stoned.” It’s like do it if you want. Hell, I think drinking’s more prominent than marijuana.

I think sometimes, like No-Doze and stuff, that’s prominent, especially during finals week, you’ll see a lot of that. Red Bull or whatever, that’s there, but then you need something else. I’m guilty of using no-doze a couple of times just to get through something. But then again, I don’t see anybody like addicted to it or needing to go to a health clinic to get off it or whatever.

I almost think of Glee Club as a fraternity. Just because we have a lot of guys in frats and talking to them about it. I mean they’re very like, they’re very into it. They’re very like I love my fraternity, I think it’s the best thing in the world. You kind of want to join something and I think that fraternities and sororities are one of the big things that people choose to do here.

One of the things that a lot of people are like, well, we can’t have fun if we can’t drink, well, not true. I think that if you get a bunch of your friends together to go up to First Run or if you go up to Stadium or Balcony, you’re going to have a great. Miami, every Wednesday has an 80’s night at Balcony and it’s one of the best things. People talk about it all the time.

You don’t need to get drunk to go up there. It’s just all 80’s music, people dress in 80’s and they just go up and have a great time with their friends.