Binge: What Your College Student Won't Tell You - Paperback

by Barrett Seaman (Author)

Campus Life in an Age of Disconnection and ExcessIn Binge, Barrett Seaman reveals what every parent, student, and educator needs to know about the college experience. Seaman spent time with students at twelve highly regarded and diverse colleges and universities across North America-. During his two years of research, he immersed himself in the lives of the students, often living in their dorms, dining with them, speaking with them on their own terms, and listening to them express their thoughts and feelings. Portraying a campus culture in which today's best and brightest students grapple with far more than academic challenges, Binge conveys the unprecedented stresses on campus today. While sharing revealing interviews and the often dramatic stories, Seaman explores the complexities of romantic relationships and sexual relations, alcohol and drug use, anxiety and depression, class and racial boundaries, and more. Despite the disturbing trends, Seaman finds reasons for optimism and offers provocative and well-informed suggestions for improving the undergraduate experience. Sometimes alarming, always fascinating, and ultimately hopeful, Binge is an extraordinary investigative work that reveals the realities of higher education today.

Front Jacket

After thirty years as a correspondent and editor for Time magazine, Barrett Seaman embarked on an independent two-year investigation to uncover the real story of college life today. He especially wanted to see how-- and why-- undergraduate living has changed since he was at college in the tumultuous late 1960s. Seaman was surprised by the realities of student life on today's campuses-- and is concerned by the implications they hold for the future.

In this major new book, Seaman reveals what every parent, student, and educator needs to know about what really goes on after classes let out-- in dorm rooms late at night, in fraternity and sorority houses, and outside the quads. Seaman spent time with students in their dorms at twelve highly regarded and diverse colleges and universities across North America-- Harvard, Dartmouth, Middlebury, Hamilton, the University of Virginia, Duke, Indiana University- Bloomington, the University of Wisconsin- Madison, the University of California-Berkeley, Stanford, Pomona, and Canada's McGill University. During his two years of research, he immersed himself in the lives of the students, often living in their dorms, dining with them, speaking with them on their own terms, and listening to them express their thoughts and feelings.

Portraying a campus culture in which today's best and brightest students grapple with far more than academic challenges, Binge conveys the unprecedented stresses on campus today as well as the sense of isolation students feel from the "real world" and often from each other. The book reveals the complexities of an environment in which romantic relationships and sexual relations are often casualand ambiguous, alcohol and drug use are widespread and dangerously unchecked, anxiety and depression are common, and boundaries along class and racial lines are too often permeated with tension. He exposes the increasing aloofness of professors and the stereotypes that student athletes struggle against and sometimes reinforce. While sharing revealing interviews and the often dramatic stories of those he encountered, Seaman explores some difficult questions: Just how hard are students studying? What are students' real reasons for going to college today? What's the "right" drinking age? How can parents help-- or hurt-- their child's chances for success? Why have students come to expect less from their professors? Has diversity worked on campus? Who is really in charge-- the administration, professors, residential advisors, or the students themselves?

Despite the disturbing trends, Seaman finds reasons for optimism. Today's students, although troubled by the increasing uncertainties of life today, are smart, resilient, and eager to take their place in the adult world-- if only they were given the chance. And Seaman offers provocative and well-informed suggestions for improving the undergraduate experience. Sometimes alarming, always fascinating, and ultimately hopeful, Binge is an extraordinary investigative work that lays bare the realities of higher education today.

Back Jacket

"Amid all the talk about what life is like on college campuses, Barrett Seaman has done something very valuable: he actually went out and reported what really is happening. From sex to drugs to studying, he provides a fascinating and reliable report that every parent ought to read carefully." --WALTER ISAACSON, New York Times bestselling author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

"Binge is an important book written with the insight and passion of a college trustee and the objectivity and eloquence of a veteran journalist. Seaman's comprehensive recommendations are logical, sensible, and ambitious. If heeded, they should be a major catalyst for change." --EUGENE M. TOBIN, Program Officer for the Liberal Arts Colleges Program at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

Just how hard are students studying? Has diversity worked on campus? What's the "right" drinking age? How can parents help--or hurt--their child's chances for success? Barrett Seaman embarked on a two-year investigation of colleges and universities across North America to answer these and other questions about the real story of campus life today. In Binge, he reveals what every parent, student, and educator needs to know about the disturbing trends--from depression and substance abuse to racial tension and isolation--as well as the reasons for optimism. Offering provocative, well-informed suggestions for improving the undergraduate experience, Binge is an extraordinary investigative work that lays bare the realities of higher education.

Author Biography

BARRETT SEAMAN was a correspondent and editor for Time magazine for thirty years; he covered the White House during the Reagan administration and later served as special projects editor before retiring in 2001. He is now a trustee at Hamilton College. Seaman has appeared on the Today show and The Charlie Rose Show.