Sometime during fall quarter of my freshman year, I was at a party with a group of upperclassmen. I politely refused any drink offers, claiming that I was partied-out from the weekend before, and the weekend before that and the weekend before that, too. At this, a senior put his arm around my shoulders and gave me a piece of advice: It’s not alcoholism until graduation. Everybody within earshot laughed, cheered and raised their shiny red Solo cups in salute to collegiate debauchery. I laughed along, mildly surprised that Northwestern students placed so much value on the capacity to drink, especially because I’d been forewarned of Northwestern’s deficient social scene.

A month or so after that, the same senior was berated for not knowing what he was doing after graduation, and was called immature for putting his partying before his schoolwork. This was more in line with my preconceived notions of Northwesternian attitudes, but I was confused by the complete turn of opinion. How is it that a person can be both admired and condemned for the exact same thing? To be considered socially successful at Northwestern, is it necessary to be brilliant, accomplished, and drunk all at the same time?

Darryl Liu, a McCormick junior, believes that “some people, a significant amount, use college as an excuse to drink. At NU there is pressure to drink some, but not pressure to drink like crazy and black out.” Unsurprisingly, these experiences seem to fall in line with the majority of those in the Northwestern social life.

After all, we are still college kids. Just like the students at huge party schools, we want to have the best and most memorable college experience possible. We’re going to be working for the rest of our lives, so there’s no time like the present to make hilariously irresponsible mistakes. Of course, being reckless and careless by no means necessitates drinking, but alcohol is a time-honored social lubricant that allows us to pretend that we aren’t awkward nerds who love politics, science, literature, or any of the things that labeled us as geeks in high school.

But for a university with an unabashedly thirsty social life, there’s an element of partiers’s remorse that seems to hound Northwestern students when they’re outside a party setting, a sentiment I’ve never seen from my friends at more stereotypical party schools. Those of us who might have been grooving away at the Keg last night talk about it with amused shame the next day, or are reluctant to talk about it at all. Nearly every person I spoke to was visibly uncomfortable with discussing the party scene at Northwestern, while the same people spoke with ease about the rigors of Northwestern academics.

Weinberg senior Sarah McMillan believes that Northwestern students are too focused on what happens after graduation. “When I talk to friends at different schools, there’s not as much pressure on them to know what they’re doing after graduation, and that comes from Northwestern and starts as a freshman,” she said. I think we can all relate.

Because when it comes down to it, we chose Northwestern because we’re nerds, because we’re good at school and enjoy school. This doesn’t mean that we don’t love to have a good time. But it does tend to change our outlook on partying like we just don’t care, particularly when we stumble into our third midterm of the week with a temple-bursting hangover. Personally, I love to go out and I have the sense of humor of a ten-year-old boy, but I’m constantly sitting on ever-growing piles of reading, papers and pamphlets for LSAT prep classes. At any given moment, whether I’m drinking cheap beer or laughing at some vague reference to penises, part of my mind is always focused on everything I should be getting done in order to keep afloat.

So, after a year of being over-worked, over-partied, and completely lost, I think I’ve figured out something that should be totally obvious. The key to being cool at this particular college is an unavoidable double standard: Be carefree and reckless, but make sure to maintain that stellar GPA. Keep an eye on the future while fully enjoying the freedoms of the present. To me, it’s an insane social paradox, but is one of the unique things I love most about Northwestern. No, we are not a party school, and no, we are not focused solely on academics. We are simply caught in a never-ending balancing act between our desire to be dumb college kids and our understanding that no matter what, our nerdy proclivities will always get the better of us.