Editor’s Note: Alexa Diaz is the editorial editor for The Daily Orange. This story was done independently of her work as the editorial editor and was completed as part of a collaboration between The D.O. and the Department of Newspaper and Online Journalism at Syracuse University.

More than half of the 315 Syracuse University students who completed a recent survey said they had a hangover at least three times in the past year, with 21 percent of those surveyed saying they had been hungover 11 times or more during that period.

Fifty-four percent of those surveyed also said they had experienced memory loss as a result of drinking at least once during the last year. Nearly half — 46 percent — said they had missed class at least once because of drinking. Sixty-­six percent said they had done something while drunk that they later regretted. And a whopping 74 percent said they had been physically sick at least once in the last year due to drinking.

Yet among those same students, 83 percent said they have never considered the possibility that they had a drinking problem.

The survey respondents were more likely to think, though, that other students do have drinking problems. Asked to disagree or agree with the statement, “There is an alcohol problem at SU,” 45 percent either agreed or somewhat agreed with the statement. Meanwhile, 20 percent either disagreed or somewhat disagreed, and 35 percent were neutral.

Students weren’t surprised by the results.

“Honestly I think drinking and drugs at every college campus is the same. It’s just more known at bigger schools like this,” said Elizabeth McGarvey, a sophomore food studies major. “It may be more of a problem here than at a little tiny private school, but that’s just because there are more students here.”

The survey was administered using a paper questionnaire the week before and the week after Spring Break for the “A Sobering Reality” project. Students in three 300-­level news reporting classes at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications approached students to ask them to take the survey, which was anonymous. The students who administered the survey were instructed to approach people they didn’t know in a variety of locations on campus.

The survey respondents ended up being quite diverse. Questionnaires were filled out by students enrolled in each of the university’s 11 colleges and schools. Graduate students and all levels of undergraduates were represented in the results. Forty­-two percent of the respondents were members of Greek organizations or were interested in joining one.

The average age of a respondent was 20, with an age range of 18 to 30. Like the university itself, women were more heavily represented in the sample, with 63 percent of those surveyed identifying as female. The university population is about 55­ percent women and 45 percent men.

Though the respondents are diverse, it should be noted that the data collection for the survey did not use random sampling. As such, extrapolating the findings to the entire campus can’t be done with certainty.

Here are a few of the highlights of the survey’s results:

• The respondents reported drinking as few as zero drinks and as many as 50 drinks during an average week.
• Fifty­-one percent of the students said they preferred hard alcohol (including shots and mixed drinks) over beer and wine.
• Males reported drinking more than their female counterparts, and members of Greek organizations reported drinking more than non­-Greeks.
• About 64 percent said they had consumed more than five drinks in a single sitting at least once in the two weeks prior to taking the survey. Twenty-­eight percent said they had consumed that much at least three times in the two­-week period. And 12 percent said they had consumed that much at least five times during that period.
• A majority of the respondents — 52 percent — said they most often consumed alcohol at private house parties. Twenty-­one percent said they drank at Greek houses, 17 percent indicated they drank most often in bars and 10 percent said they drank in dorms. The rest of the respondents checked more than one category, despite being asked not to.
• About 40 percent of the respondents said they had purchased or used a fake ID in the past year.
• About 40 percent of respondents said they got into a fight or argument at least once as a result of drinking. Thirty-­one percent said they had been hurt as a result of their drinking at least once in the past year and about 14 percent said they had damaged property at least once as a result of drinking.
• Thirty-­two percent said they had performed poorly on a test at least once because of drinking in the past year.
• Most respondents did not report that they had engaged in extreme behavior as a result of their drinking. But there were exceptions. Twenty­-eight respondents — about 9 percent of the sample — said they had driven drunk in the past year, with four students saying they had been arrested as a result.
• Thirty­-nine students — about 12 percent of the sample —said they had been taken advantage of sexually as a result of drinking, and four students indicated that they had taken advantage of someone else while drunk.
• Nine students said they had thought about suicide as a result of drinking.

In addition to measuring the frequency of certain behaviors, the survey also gave respondents several statements and asked them to use a five-­point scale to indicate their level of agreement with the statement. Average answers above “3” indicated the students generally agreed with the statement, while averages below 3 indicated disagreement.

For example, on the “There is an alcohol problem at SU” statement, the average score was 3.4, indicating that more people agreed with than disagreed with the statement. Fewer people thought SU has a drug problem, but the average was still slightly above 3 at 3.1.

Students felt relatively strongly that there is plenty to do at SU that does not involve drinking with a 3.78 average score, that SU does a good job of explaining its drinking policy with a 3.6 average score and that SU adequately enforces its drinking policy with a 3.3 average score.

“It’s college, and we should enforce ourselves,” said Basil Adams, a sophomore health and exercise science major, in explaining his answer. “There should be some enforcement, obviously, but there should be more of an emphasis on preventing violence rather than on preventing drinking.”

On average, the respondents disagreed that they came to SU because it was a party school, with the statement “I came to SU in part because it is a party school” getting an average rating of 2.

Editor’s Note: Over the past month, The Daily Orange has collaborated with the Department of Newspaper and Online Journalism at Syracuse University on a series of stories relating to alcohol culture on the SU campus. Multiple stories will appear in The D.O. in the coming days.

Published on April 8, 2016 at 8:19 pm

Contact Satoshi: ssugiyam@syr.edu | @SatoshiJournal