Each Thursday, Friday and Saturday, hundreds of UMass students walk, carpool, or bus off campus to the characteristic college social gathering - a house party.
Evidence enough is North Pleasant Street on Friday night, a corridor of off-campus partying, lined from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. with party-goers and the flashing lights of police cars.
When most high school students think of a college party, they imagine something of "Can't Hardly Wait" proportions; hundreds of people crammed into a house, dancing, drinking, out of control, and they're often not too far off from the truth.
Walking into a gigantic house party can be somewhat of a sensory overload, there is never less that five or six things going on at the same time. Walking in the door at a party where you're well known may elicit general "Heeeys!" from the majority of the party, or you may slip in unnoticed. But the first things you experience are the most sensual, the heat produced by 50 people in a small room, the sight of those people piled in to couches or around a Beirut table or anywhere there is space, and the constant sound of conversation or reaction to various drinking games.
Just recently dropping off the top ten list of biggest party schools, UMass is still no stranger to a house party.
"Partying and large parties on and off campus are things that happen across the country," said UMass spokesman Ed Blaguszewski. "They're not unique to UMass or Amherst, and unfortunately the overindulgence in alcohol and related violence is not uncommon either."
Without a doubt drinking is one of, if not the central focus of a big house party, as proved by the wide variety of drinking games probably taking place the moment you walk into a party. There will almost certainly be a game of Beirut being played where teams try to throw ping-pong balls into alcohol-filled cups to make opponents drink, and card games are ever popular.
Certainly, with the recent acts of violence on campus, the question of alcohol and partying has been a point of discussion, but fighting isn't always one of the ingredients at a house party, some frequent party goers insist they've never seen a fight at a party.
"There's been a lot of violence recently, but all that really happens on campus - I know that stuff that happened in Southwest, the kids didn't even go to this school - there's nothing really UMass can do about that," said UMass sophomore Alex King. "You can't eliminate the stupid people in this world. I'm sure they were a little drunk at least, but that's who they are, you're not going to get drunk and change who you are."
Capt. Scott Livingstone, of the Amherst Police Department, said he has to deal with violence all the time at house parties.
"When there's alcohol involved and someone pisses someone else off at a party [it can lead to fighting.] We often get called in to break up fights and most of the time we tell people it might be a good idea to break [the party] up even if they haven't had an official complaint yet because they probably will."
Fear of a party being broken up by the cops is always in the back of the minds of partiers and especially the owners of the house. While usually impossible to quiet down a rambling crowd of 50 or more people, a simple utterance, "shhhh…cops" quickly echoes through the party, and can usually bring quiet long enough to figure out what's going, as the owner speaks with the officers or the party collectively holds it's breath until the cops have moved on.
"We respond to noise complaints and calls about parties every day of the week and more on the weekend, and more with warmer weather outdoors," said Livingstone. "Usually we're out on routine patrol but we don't stop people unless we see illegal activity going on. We don't respond unless there's been an official complaint."
Parties are also more than anything a social gathering, a chance for friends who may not have seen each other all week to catch up and also to meet new people. Parties are a reflection of the current state of affairs, where hardly five minutes goes by without a quote from a recently circulated YouTube video or popular movie.
During midterms party goers are exhausted and somber, while the warmer weather brings out peoples brighter sides. Every party is a unique mixture of the moods of dozens of people, and no two are the same.
Of course not every party at UMass is of epic proportions. Parties range from five or 10 people hanging out and having a good time, alcohol or not, to the "Can't Hardly Wait" movie scene. Some students will go their entire four years without attending such a party; others will go every weekend without missing one.
There is another fundamental difference between the oft-portrayed movie college party and real-life. While there are giant frat parties, and other equally immense and random gatherings, chances are you're partying every weekend with the group of friends you hang out with anyways.
UMass sophomore Crystal Cabral makes that distinction between big frat parties and house parties, "House parties are better than frats because I feel safe, I know my friends, and my friends will take care of me. Parties make UMass smaller because I know more people and it's easier to connect with them"
Regardless, UMass has been trying to clean up the image of a being party school, and while some students are all for the change, others see partying as an important part of the UMass identity.
"Half the students live off campus, 12,000 live on campus, which is one of the largest populations in the country, and certainly the students who live on campus will go to parties off campus, so it has to be an issue that's addressed on and off," said Blaguszewski
"I know they're trying to clean up their image, but every college has partiers, you're not going to get rid of that," said King. "There's an image of a party school, and you kind of got to, not necessarily embrace it...I'm all for having a better school, but doesn't mean we're going to party less."
King adds, "I guarantee I'd be a better student, but I would not have as much fun here. I don't know if I would enjoy it as much. You gotta work you're ass off and then let lose, relax and have a good time, that can be as important as working."
Ben Williams can be reached at bwilliam@student.umass.edu
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