I was determined to prove the ineffectiveness of the three-hour- long Internet-based alcohol education course that all incoming freshmen had to take this summer. Most of the freshmen I’ve spoken with complain that the course is unnecessary, too lengthy, too slow, and some even declare that it is a "waste of time." After sitting through the course myself, I can definitely sympathize with those sentiments.

Virtually every freshman I know, myself included, let the program run mute on their computers, and stopped by only every five minutes or so to click the continue button. The monotone voices of the "experts", the somewhat irrelevant case studies, and the vast amount of common knowledge in the course made it extremely mundane, and therefore, fruitless in its objective of educating us about the dangerous effects of alcohol.

However, after a brief chat with Associate Dean of Students Neil Gerard, I gained a lot of perspective on the administration’s purpose in assigning the course to us. I was informed that the very day that substance-free opening ended, three Pomona students were hospitalized with alcohol poisoning.

"If we’re not careful, somebody here is going to die from alcohol poisoning. We’ve come very close to that, but we’ve been very lucky," said Dean Gerard. The alcohol education course was a sincere effort by the administration to decrease alcohol abuse on our campus, not a spiteful assignment intended to waste three precious hours of each freshman’s time. And the best part is that there is no punishment for not completing the course.

Students who fail the final exam at the end will be given a chance to redo the course with a new access code. Also, the administration has plans for pizza parties for sponsor groups whose members have all completed and passed the Alcoholedu course.

This is not to say that the program cannot be improved upon. This year is the first time that the administration has required all incoming freshmen to take a course in alcohol education, so feedback from our experience can be used to shape and improve the program for next year’s freshmen. Gerard explains that last year’s CD-Rom based course, Alcohol 101, was used as a sanction for students who had already abused alcohol.

Why the switch? Gerard expresses optimism that "if we can teach our students more about alcohol, hopefully we can change some behavior." This hope is not lost on the freshmen crowd. After a tirade against the tedium of the program, Lawrence Lin ’05 contemplates, "Maybe it won’t stop people from drinking, but it might lead them to drink in moderation." While some may doubt this sentiment, nobody can deny that some practical and useful information was included in the course.

"It was boring, but I did learn something," admits Laura Nixon ’05. "It wasn’t too preachy, and they made a sincere effort to be objective," says Seth Kerstein ’05.

The common grievances against the monotony and the length of the program aside, some interesting comments and suggestions for improving the program were made by the students I chatted with.

Linda Hahn ‘05 explains, "I don’t drink, and I don’t plan on drinking, so I felt that the program really had no application to me."

Other students expressed sentiments that the program script could have been made available so that those who learn by reading (as opposed to listening or watching) could have had an easier method of absorbing the information. Claire Rojstaczer ’05 wrote to the program to ask for a copy of the script, but nobody ever replied to her.

"If people don’t want to [learn from the program], they won’t. They should provide other options [like readings] for those who do want to learn, just in other ways. There might have been useful information in there, but I missed it because I just can’t learn that way," said Rojstaczer.

Overall, both the freshmen and the administration take the program and the issue of alcohol abuse seriously. If the freshmen continue to criticize constructively and give suggestions to the administration, and if the administration continues to be open-minded toward the suggestions of students, a more interesting and more effective program could be installed for future freshmen. Perhaps Dean Gerard’s hope of changed behavior can emerge on our campus.