As children we deal with a certain amount of anxiety at various stages in our lives. We all remember the day we started kindergarten hoping to make new friends and get use to being away from home. Then we enter middle school where we make new friends as we try to get through English, History, Chemistry and Algebra. Everyone just loved Algebra and Chemistry right? Then we learn about Calculus as our professors help mold us into the next generation of leaders.

During our high school years, we truly change as we discover more about our friends, ourselves and life itself. Living life to the fullest with high school parties, winter formal and of course prom. In regards to fashion, alcohol and drugs, many of us are fully influenced by advertisements, social media, friends and more so our parents on experimenting more in life. This is where the “College Experience” begins bringing them into a whole new world within itself.

There are many colleges within the United States that offer various degrees but of course we all know that it isn’t just getting the degree but where you receive it that truly matters. Out of many universities out there, due to living in Texas, I decided to research Texas A&M University. Texas A&M University was founded in 1876. It has a total undergraduate enrollment of over 57,512 students as of 2023. The size of the campus is 5,200 acres located in College Station, Texas. It is a semester based college ranked #47 with an in-state tuition of $12,413 and out of state tuition of $40,607. This university offers over 1000 clubs and organizations, including nearly 60 fraternities and sororities not to mention their great sports program with huge Alumni support.

A great university with so much to offer but also one that is known for a large amount of stress because of it. Students are entering a new world that goes beyond that of elementary, middle or high school. This is where students either learn about how to become adults directly or indirectly. They feel the need for independence though their parents are not ready to let go just yet.

We all remember our college days don’t we? The frat parties, and all night studying for exams and extra curricular events that we attended meeting new friends and creating new experiences that will last a lifetime. Of course, our parents would call us to check in daily or weekly making sure we were doing okay in this new world of ours. Some us still relied on our parent’s money as we attended college, while others actually became full time adults paying for college themselves with grants, loans and working an actual job.

Everyone expects college students to enjoy life and take chances on new experiences (both good and bad) as they discover what it feels like to be fully responsible for themselves for once. When I decided to visit Texas A&M University every two weeks for three years to research, I wasn’t prepared for what I discovered. The following information was derived from interviewing various college students as well as observation of students engagement within and outside of college grounds. All student’s names will be withheld as this article is only to inform on what is occurring at Texas A&M University.

Students are extremely stressed being that they have courses to learn, organizations and societies to pay for and still have money for food, room and board and enjoyment. Some students didn’t experience many things before college so not they are seeking to experience as much as possible. Peer Pressure is at its greatest peak when you attend college.

The following is a brief summary of information obtained while observing college students at Texas A&M University.

Professors and Class Assignments

Though students are assisted with which courses to take by their counselor, they are not informed of the right professor to take the course with. They is an actual “Rate My Professor” Board for Texas A&M students to rate and give insight for new students coming. This doesn’t change the professor’s way of still teaching and in some cases, failing their students simply because having tenure allows them to. I was informed by some students that there are professors out there who offer extra credit and try to do what they can to help their students excel. But unfortunately there were some professors, which I won’t name that basically enjoyed failing their students. They felt if the student couldn’t understand how to capture insight from their teachings then they were meant to fail. As you can see sometimes allowing professors tenure can give some of them a God Like impression over their students. Even though I contacted the past President of Texas A&M, M. Katherine Banks, to inform her of such situations, she never took time to respond back. Clearly I understand why now as she resigned almost 2 years later (July 20, 2023) due to not hiring a journalism professor. There are online programs that can help college students improve their learning but of course these programs are not free of charge. This only causes more internal stress for college students to endure with no offerings from the college to help relieve.

Alcohol Consumption

Fraternities and Sororities are known for helping college students to make friends, learn about teamwork, and gain assistance after graduation in efforts to gaining employment from referrals and personal references due to membership. They are also costly with quarterly payments as well as payments for coordinating events, recruiting others, providing welcome gifts, etc. Money that either the students will have to find on their own or have their parents pay for. But of course we don’t want to forget one great opportunity of being a member of a Fraternity or Sorority. PARTIES, PARTIES and MORE PARTIES!!! Thought college students are entering at ages 17 or a18, it doesn’t stop Fraternities and Sororities from having alcohol at their late night functions. Do you believe that the College had police or some faculty member to make sure underage drinking was occurring at these parties? Of course not, as they placed trust in the organization’s leaders to do the right thing. The keyword here being Trust. But hey, the college students got the opportunity to lay off some stress right? Where there is alcohol, there is a great possibility for drugs. There were definitely drugs there. I was informed that normally the drugs were shrooms, cocaine, marijuana and LSD (acid).

But if you were not part of a Sorority or Fraternity then there was no way to gain access to alcohol or drugs right? Wrong! Places such as Harrys and Northgate and The Dixie Chicken were places to be on the weekend. Thought they did check IDS when you paid to get in and stamped your hand or place a tag on your wrist, this didn’t stop underage college students from getting access to alcohol. Basically these places as well as the bars around them didn’t really have servers to come serve you alcohol. Instead you had to go to the bar and order drinks. So all you needed was one person to be 21 years old and then they could order the drinks for the rest of their friends. Basically these places are open for business to make money and making money was exactly what they did on the weekends and LOTS OF IT! Of course the college students were told by other students how to order fake IDS from China for only $100-$200 dollars to help them use in the bars where bartenders didn’t have time to pay attention to really look at the IDs thoroughly due to how busy they were making drinks. I did see Texas A&M police outside of the bars when they closed but they were basically there to monitor the area and not really check if students were drinking. They were there to arrest students and adults only if they caused a riot or started fighting. College students will have fun as we all did and no need to ruin their life with a misdemeanor or felony charge for alcohol consumption.

It doesn’t stop here. I was able to discover that it quite easy to get alcohol into your dorm rooms and also many nearby apartments. Even if the management discovered that there was alcohol or drugs in the apartment, they would normally just inform the students to clean it up so others wouldn’t know. Such apartments that did this was Berkley House, Northpoint Crossing, Crossing Place, The Callaway House, The Lofts at Wolfpen Creek, and Lakewalk at Traditions Apartments. Due to current recession and inflation, why would these apartments do the right thing and lose thousands of dollars in return? I recall being in one of the apartment where the kitchen was like a museum shrine to Tito’s Vodka. They had to have at least 40 bottles of empty Tito’s Vodka just hanging on top of the cabinets. I was able to hang with some of the students in the dorm rooms as it is policy for freshman students to stay in dorms for the first year. They were drinking with ease as the “Resident Advisor” passed and just to make sure they were cool and not causing any havoc. College Station is a place that relies on College students to spend money.

Drugs, Drugs and More Drugs through Social Media

Now to the subject everyone talks about. Drug use within the United States but more so at Colleges and Universities. We all know that drug use is apparent at Colleges whether its a public one or private one. Having college students using drugs isn’t something new for anyone. What surprised me here was how easy it was to gain access to drugs and not really worry about getting caught in many ways. The information I was able to gather is that the most common drugs used by students of Texas A&M University was Shrooms, Marijuana, Gummies, Cocaine and LSD aka acid. In speaking with why college students were using these drugs, some stated for recreational purposes, others due to high stress and a need to stay awake studying. What got me was some stated it was on their “BUCKET LIST”. I recall speaking to one college female that just recovered from a vehicle accident which was very traumatic. She stated that she has taken many drugs and LSD was the last one on her bucket list. What gained my attention is when I stated she might get arrested in the future, she actually was offended by me stating that and felt threatened by it. This was coming from a college student that was studying LAW at Texas A&M University. Just think about that for moment. Makes you wonder what kind of lawyer she will wind up being if she felt she wasn’t breaking the law by taking LSD at age 19 as a freshman and sorority member of ALPHA DELTA PI. GO AGGIES!!!

The ease of gaining access to drugs were simply by using SNAPCHAT of all things. Why SNAPCHAT you ask? Well because you can contact someone with a message and it deletes within 24 hours after being sent unless the contact does a snapshot of message. What a easy way to order drugs (mostly Shrooms, LSD and some cases gummies and marijuana) with ease of having not evidence of communication afterwards. Wonder what would have if the F.B.I. or D.E.A. were to subpoena SNAPCHAT records from students who attended Texas A&M University as well as other Universities. Hmmm…the messages they would find indeed.

I noticed that VAPES were always being consumed by many College students under the age of 21. Nice when you have friends that are older to make a sale to you that works as an employee. Of course those Fake IDS from China helped as well.

It was very interesting to discover that Texas A&M University Police were the ones who had authorization over arrests at the Easterwood Airport located in College Station. Why would Texas A&M Police handle crimes at the airport instead of the College Station police? Well I discovered that if any students got caught with drugs at the airport by TSA then instead of College Station police handling the situation, it would be handled by Texas A&M University police who is controlled by Texas A&M Faculty Management. Makes you think as they wouldn’t want any of this to get out in the media bringing negative attention towards them. I decided to do more investigation on the Drug program for those who did get caught with possession of LSD, SHROOMS, Cocaine and Marijuana. I discovered that when arrested, 90% of all arrested were not even given a drug test that same day to make sure no drugs were in their system.

I also discovered that they have as part of their drug program, daily phone call system where individuals on the program had to call in to see if they were scheduled for a drug test that day. This was great to hear except for one slight problem. If the drug user called on the weekends, it was 100% sure that they would be told that they didn’t have to do a drug test because the drug testing place was closed on the weekends. Yes you heard me correctly, the drug testing place was closed on the weekends. Yes they could go to the Brazos county jail to be tested but it never happened as they were always told no drug test today if it was during the weekend. Nice to know when you want to drink alcohol or use drugs on Friday and Saturday so it’s out of your system by Monday.

What about drug tests for employment purposes? Surprisingly I discovered that many of the employers in College Station didn’t require a drug test to be employed. Most of the Bars didn’t require it as well as places like FATTYS and other VAPE stores. Even Innovative Fitness located on 3024 Texas Avenue hired workers and pole dance trainers without any drug test. Innovative Fitness and Super Cuts located on 1519 Texas Ave both had plenty of College Station students spend money there for their services. Not sure of course if they only received those specific services.

Texas A&M University is funded by two large endowments though they still receive funding from State Legislature, the government, grants, organizations and private companies (not to mention the Alumni). Texas A&M brings in alot of money during their sports seasons (Football and Basketball) as the hotels alone raise their prices from an average of $254 per night to as much as $1500 a night on the weekends that Football season is in play.

Statistics

Being that 64.7% females and 35.3% males attended Texas A&M University explained the amount of sex offered along with usage of drugs and alcohol. Though nobody wants to think about racism still existing in America, it was interesting to discover that 50% of students were white as supposed to 23% being hispanic, 11% being Asian and only 3% being black. I guess not many blacks and asians apply to Texas A&M University or is it that Texas A&M has a preference on who they wish to have attend their university. With research it showed that many of those parents of the 50% white students had large employment income with pockets with money to spend and also offer to the University. Just a fact but interesting fact indeed. I was informed by some of the Asian students attending there that there were white racist students at the college but they were threatened if they spoke up about it. I was also informed that many of the male students would force themselves on the female students. Many fraternity students would easy enjoy the females at the parties after waiting for the drugs and alcohol to set in making it easy access for sex. This was in some cases technically rape but never brought up due to the shame of the female being called a whore or slut to mentally manipulate them that they brought it on themselves.

Based on current data, College Station made over 18 million dollars annually in 2022 and it is still increasing even with the recession and inflation cost. I discovered that 91% of College Station residents were U.S. Citizens with Senator Ted Cruz residing over as their Senator. Clearly College Station is a well kept jewel of financing with easy access to drugs and alcohol because it’s all about the money.

I don’t condone all of the drug and alcohol usage by Texas A&M University students as I seen first hand the extreme amounts of STRESS they engage daily. I firmly believe in Marijuana being healthy and helpful in many ways mentally and physically for humans. When you start dealing in cocaine and LSD which are controlled substances that can kill you if not used properly, then I feel we have a problem here when it is so easy to access it. Remember that these students are the future doctors, lawyers, architects, and agriculturalists for the United States.

It just makes me think that the state of Texas is so against Marijuana and drugs yet they allow it to be so easily accessible in their little gem city known as College Station. Something to think about when it comes to true morals and ethics.

I hope that the current President of Texas A&M, Mark A Welsh, will do a much better job then his predecessor, M. Katherine Banks. I feel with his resume and background, we should see a more progressive strategy towards making sure the students are mentally stable after engagement with their professors and still can enjoy the “COLLEGE LIFE” but with less access to LSD and COCAINE. Many students were drinking alcohol as they consumed drugs. The main factor that got my attention was that the students never truly knew what was in the drugs being sold. They could have been laced with cocaine, heroin or meth and they would have never known. I know this as my previous engagements with studies on drugs showed that unless you knew your dealer and their dealer, you had to test what you were getting before trusting it.

Conclusion

I do applaud the students at Texas A&M University for the ability to handle the amount of stress they endured and still manage to pass their exams and courses. Especially because many of them had internal issues with their parents which caused more stress on them while attending college. It appeared that most of the parents didn’t acknowledge the problems that the students brought to their attention. They either overlooked them or simply felt it wasn’t a problem to find a solution to. It was so important to make sure everyone was happy on their INSTAGRAM POSTS showing how great it was to be at Texas A&M University. As one of the questions asked when joining a Fraternity or Sorority was if the college student had an Instagram account and how many followers they currently had. I am not a medical physician but I could see students who possibly showed signs of Bi-Polar or ADHD but were told by their parents that there was no way they had due to the mental illusion that such disability would make their child less special or important enough to move forward in life. Like I said, I have nothing against experiencing the “COLLEGE LIFE” as we all did and enjoyed it while learning from those experiences. Just make it abit more safer and less stressful if possible.

Thank you for reading my article and understanding what 3 years of full observation was able to bring me. I hope this helps you to understand that today’s “COLLEGE LIFE” might be abit more stressful that the ones in the past. That is just my valid opinion based on observation.

This article was written by our Editor-in-Chief and founder, Alan Cousin, for the basis of observation in order to inform others of the information gathered. Alan Cousin seeks to protect our future and those who are to become future leaders of the world.

Alan Cousin

Founder of Get Up Radio Media Broadcasting(www.news.getupradio.com / www.worldnews.getupradio.com)

Member of the National Press Club of Washington, D.C. (www.press.org)