College is all about finding balance – be it a balance between class and extracurriculars, doing homework or hanging out with friends and, on the weekends, finding a balance between the morning's raging hangover and finding time in the evening to, well, rage.
With that in mind, it’s important to look at how the balance you strike between the two reflects on your time at Northwestern. Obviously some people are all about shots and staying up to study for six hours before their sociology midterm, while others appreciate the fine art of mixology and get their thesis proposals turned in a week ahead of the due date. If you marry the two – college and drinking – you can figure out what drinking at Northwestern says about its students. So, if Northwestern were a bar, what would the undergraduate schools be?
Judd A. and Marjorie Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences: Jungle juice
Ah, jungle juice, the quintessential college drink. Just like the College of Arts and Sciences, with jungle juice, you’re never quite sure what you’re getting. It could be anything – vodka, tequila, rum, Kool-Aid that the cheap-ass party hosts hope you don’t realize is just Kool-Aid – but to be sure, there’s always some sort of variety.
And it’s the typical college experience. Just like you're bound to find jungle juice at the latest fundraising party your friends tell you you have to go to, you're definitely going to see some Weinberg kids at the beer pong table or by the bar.
Check out more beer choices in our Winter Quarter magazine. Pick up a copy starting March 7.The Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications: Straight gin
While this selection may seem random to those who haven’t suffered through the night session of 201-1, or 301 in the winter, Medilldos know that straight liquor is about the only thing that can get you through the required 45 credits for a Medill degree.
Seriously, though, you would need a gin, straight up, if your school gave an eponymous “F" for not following AP style and then put a goddamn Oxford comma in its title.
Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science: Absinthe
The drink of choice for McCormick is absinthe, not because you need all sorts of high-tech gear – in absinthe's case, all the paraphernalia like absinthe spoons, etc., and in engineering's case, all the like, mini suitcases full of wiring and electric boards and other things . It's because absinthe was originally developed for alcoholics who were too poor to keep buying wine and lower-proof liquor, so someone made a super strong liquor for super cheap. And if we're being honest, if you are in an engineering program, you need as much alcohol as you can get.
Update: This designation may change on rumors that the school is considering a name change to the Mccormick School of Engi-beer-ing. Or the pun may just drive more students to drink.
School of Communication: Homebrew
Okay, Comm students, we get it: Y’all were hipsters before anyone else knew who hipsters were. From your independent film productions on the weekend, to studying obscure films in that one seminar “that changed your life” that you tell absolutely anyone you meet about, you obviously have a leg up on us in what’s cutting-edge and avant-garde.
I guess it’s for the best that you won’t share your home-brewed stout with us, with barley you roasted yourself on a woodburning stove with cherry and cedar; it’s not like we’d get it. We’ll just cry in the corner and sip your previous drink-of-choice: PBR.
Henry and Leigh Bienen School of Music: Red wine
Bienen students are similar to Comm kids, in that their tastes are more refined (read: obscure) than the university's as a whole. If you’re ever in a conversation with a Bienen kid, be prepared to be blown out of the water by their superior knowledge of music, from what Brahms liked to have for breakfast to what prescription Shostakovich wore in his pre-Harry-Potter Harry Potter glasses.
Ultimately, you’ll be left in the dust as they talk about orchestral arrangements and bouquets, so just drain your class as they talk about the tannins that obviously came from the grapes being grown on the west side of the hill.
School of Education and Social Policy: Capri Sun
It’s not just that SESP kids would totally rock out with a pouch full of Pacific Cooler, but it’s also because of those field trips we all took in elementary school. Kids would totally be excited to miss out on classes for the day, and one of the best parts was the bitchin’ lunch you got to bring from home. If you were lucky, you got a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos and a peanut butter and banana sandwich with the crusts cut off. If you were luckier, you got lunch in a box.
Yes, you got a Lunchables. Screw all those tin lunchboxes. You’re not going to worry about lugging your lunchbox around all day; you’re too cool for that. You’re going to make your personal pizzas, make mini pizzas with the pepperoni, and drink that Capri Sun like the badass you are.
Of course, at the end of the day, you’re still a four-foot something, tiny (and adorable!) little elementary school kid on a chaperoned field trip, drinking Capri Sun. Such is the lot of SESP.