how prevalent are drugs/alcohol?

HitMan
Thu, 05 Apr 2012 03:55:41 +0000

As a current frosh, drinking is definitively more prevalent than I thought it would be (I like your son thought there would be very little to no drinking). However, it does exist in moderate amounts (anecdotally much less than at my friends’ colleges). However, I would say (again anecdotally) that Caltech has one of the healthiest drinking cultures on any college campus.


When people drink, they are in general careful about it (keep track of the number of drink they’ve had and matches the number of drink with cups of water).
Because of the Honor Code and how small Tech is, everyone looks out for everyone and if someone is having a bad night, then either you will take care of them or know one their friends or fellow house members who can take care of them.
Socially, whether you drink or not doesn’t matter at all. There is no social stigma about not drinking and drinking is not required to have at Caltech parties.
Everyone is at Caltech because they love math/science and so almost everyone (there will be knuckleheads at every school) put academics before getting drunk.


As regards to where the drinking happens, the majority of it happens on campus in the houses which I think is a very safe thing as there are no cars involved and no walking back to campus late at night. Also, Caltech has (I think) a great policy for alcohol/drug use which is that if security is called to an emergency, they cannot write people up just for possession which makes sure that anyone will be willing to call security if someone has is too drunk or any other crises.

Lastly, tobacco is very rare at Caltech and as far as I know there are roughly 5 undergrads at Tech who smoke (out of 900 total).