#1 Party School

The issue of the radio broadcast called "#1 Party School" is how the consumption of alcohol affects not only the students that attend Penn State but also the residents of State College. Some of the reasons why the issue needs to be investigated are that the students are being disruptive in public, damaging public property and causing civilians in the area to take action to protect themselves and their property. The intended audience is really a broad group of people. The audience could be the students of this school that are the ones being disruptive and out of control. It could also be the residents of the community, as well as police officers and store owners. There are many details that the broadcast gave to give examples of what has been going on. One interview was with a senior who quit his fraternity after his sophomore year. The student said that the fraternity partied at least four days a week and even on Mondays and Tuesdays they would casually drink beer and play pong. He said that the amount of parties really jeopardized his grades and his GPA. Another example of these details are with a local resident of State College. He said that he had to install motion sensors so that he knew everything that was going on in his yard. In his interview, he spoke of how he would see random students urinating on his property and walking around his lawn. The motion sensors, he said, helped him keep on top of what was going on on his property. The final and most important detail that was discussed in the broadcast was about the Canyon Pizza delivery boy. He spoke of many altercations that he had to endure while delivering food. He would come outside to his car being sat on by random, drunk students and when he finally would get to his destination, many of the kids would try to not even pay him. On one particular occasion, he got his jaw broken during an altercation while he was dropping off food at an apartment. The conclusion that is drawn by the end of the program was that there will be an increase in penalties. The interviewer spoke with Penn State President Graham Spanier. Spanier said that he wants the students to have a good time and everything; however, he understands that at times the students get out of control and their punishments need to be enough so that people won't do anything bad. There were many different interviews with many different kinds of people. Interviews were conducted with freshman girls on the blue loop, a resident whose land keeps getting trampled, an ex-frat guy and police officers. The narrative techniques that were used in this piece were lots of interviews and dialogues. The interviews gave a great insight into the true feelings of the public in State College and the way that Penn State students feel about drinking.

I did like the piece because it rightfully targets all the things that are going on here at Penn State. Many frats and kids that party do it way too much. It is almost too easy to get drunk any day of the week. Hopefully this broadcast gets listened to by a good amount of people so that they can attempt to control themselves.