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Given the highly unfortunate reality that everyone’s opinion matters, we’ve decided that it’d be a.) fun, and b.) only fair, to give you guys, the readers, a chance to voice your thoughts–a chance to demonstrate to the world how hard your school truly goes. A chance to really determine if your school’s position on the list was overrated, underrated, or true Goldilocks status. And if your school got snubbed, a chance to settle the score. Welcome to How We Party, a new column dedicated to all the shit I just said in the paragraph above. Our mission is to really get to the bottom (or top…) of the party scene at Universities across the land. And in order do so, we’ve come up with a detailed method of breaking down your school’s party scene in a manner intended to be as accurate and realistic as possible. As the first How We Party school and template guide for aspiring party analysts to follow, we will be sampling the school I graduated from just last year, Georgetown University:
Quick Hit
Georgetown: With all the pastels the students wear, the Georgetown party scene oftentimes looks like a rather imaginative drunken painting.
House Parties
Georgetown: Houses aren’t big enough, rarely any cool outside spots. Many a night Freshman year is spent fretting whether or not you and your overly large freshman herd find a “party,” AKA a house full of upperclassmen, one of whom is begrudgingly hosting an event for a club or sports team because someone had to…this person would much rather be at a bar, but has to hold down the fort for hordes of freshman to sloppily make out with each other. The huge parties are an experience, though they’re not as close to huge as other schools, and they will almost ALWAYS be broken up. A lot of this is a function of tense student-neighbor relations, and another is a function of this party monitoring group called SNAPS–a University-sanctioned department that should be very productive in theory, except that theory often forgets about the human obsession with using statistics as a barometer of effectiveness, and other important life lessons having to do with the realities of institutions learned from watching The Wire. Despite all that, good parties are still good parties. Overall: 3/10
Bar/Club Scene
Georgetown: Strength of the school, hands down. Washington DC may be “our playground,” but most Georgetown students treat bars in the city at large the way they treat working class neighborhoods–slightly intrigued, but are ultimately a little too scared to leave what they’ve grown accustomed to. That said, there is certainly no shortage “good” bars in Georgetown proper. You’ve got one of the nation’s top “our tradition is more timeless than your tradition” WASPs nests, an all-time Bro favorite, a Thursday night EDM banghouse, and about 4-5 other solid options that you could go to and not have to see anybody. The scene is incredibly strict–for a lot of places, you barely have a chance underage without pulling a few strings, though the “underage” bar tends to rotate every two years or so. We won’t discuss the current underage bar, because obviously. But RIP Thirds. A great time sake bombing is a cab to DuPont away, and other than New York City, there may not be a more easily accessible bar scene in the country. People don’t take advantage close to as much as they should (other than the foreign contingent who club it up at Lima and Josephine), and it's still that good. Overall: 10/10
Greek Life*
Georgetown: Georgetown is a Jesuit school, which has something to do with disliking fraternities. That said, for about the past decade or so, the scene has grown somewhat considerably. No social frats are recognized by Georgetown (but are recognized by national chapters), there's no IFC, no (real) fraternity houses, and the process is much more tame than most other schools. Some chapters don’t even have a pledge process, but that’s more of a function of the Georgetown culture, and people having the ability to say things like “my father.” All of this makes the Greek scene a lot more lax, which rids the school of a lot of the more negative aspects of fraternity life. As a graduate of this system, I found it to be the best experience I had at Georgetown. Heavily different than other schools, but the social presence continues to grow, it’s a big thing for those involved, and during rush periods chapters will tend to throw down relatively hard. There’s one sorority, but they spend most of their time texting ambiguous people (if any people at all) about where they’re going next. Only to of course, repeat the process until the night ends with everyone unfulfilled. Overall: 5/10
Girls
Georgetown: They demand a lot because many come from considerable/extreme privilege, but in terms of attractiveness, rather impressive for a “smart” school. The subsets:
On the whole, a lot of Georgetown girls are way too into thinking they’re significantly more spontaneous than they really are. This however, appears to be more a tragedy of the gender as a whole than it does female Hoyas.
Sports Related Raging
Georgetown: Our football field is smaller than a lot of high schools, so all the focus is on basketball. A very strong support presence, people go crazy, but we play in the Verizon Center across down and there’s no school-provided transportation. Students of age can purchase beer, which is a lot more clutch than our recent postseason performances. However, between getting across town and having to arrive early, almost all the second half is spent wildly hungover. A lot of our student (read: freshman) fans are also very tough to tolerate (lack of knowledge + enthusiasm about the general event rather than the actual team), but that part is mostly me being shitty. Overall: 4/10
Big Schoolwide Events/Traditions
Georgetown: There used to be this giant thing called “Block Party,” which has now ceded into “Georgetown Day.” It was actually started to honor the tragic (alcohol-related) death of a student, and has naturally, predictably (and if you have morals, upsettingly) morphed into a school-wide all-day drinking event. Generally the last Friday before finals when the weather is really nice, it’s basically the entire school patting themselves on the back for “surviving” a year of scrolling through twitter feeds in the Library. The administration has been getting progressively more terrible about the whole thing (last year, they attempted to create some sort of fascist barricade that would’ve made everyone drink in their dorms and possibly die), but students haven’t exactly been the most cooperative. The politics have always been and will continue to be a major issue here, but it's still a day spent getting pretty drunk with the entire school. Which is always a pretty great time. Given the school’s large Irish presence, St. Patties Day is rather large as well. More decentralized partying, but since everyone is up for celebrating, the school essentially becomes one big one. Personally I've always found St. Patties more fun than Georgetown Day, but am definitely in the minority on that one. Overall: 6/10
Intangibles
Georgetown: Overall, the Georgetown party scene is highly analogous to my coffee drinking career arc–it’s an acquired taste, but once you take a liking to it, the whole concept gets pretty addicting. Between the happy hours (DC is a HUGE happy hour city), urban backyard drinking, cabrewing, cool U Street music venues for the more hipstery crowd, and the wealth of cool events to take advantage of given the city, it’s a pretty good time. Different most certainly, but you’ve just gotta embrace it. And most students definitely do. Overall: 9/10 _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ To determine your “How We Party” Party Ranking Index, we’ll take all the categories and average them together. Meaning that your final ranking will be something out of 10, thus making this the most original scoring scheme on the entire Internet. Georgetown's “How We Party Ranking” comes in at a respectable 6.3/10. Hoya Saxa and stuff. Some important news and notes:
Using this as a template, we encourage you to back up all your shit talk in the form below. Whether or not that is done sober is your call. Your school’s rep is on the line.
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