My decision to attend East Carolina University was not necessarily inspired by this being the case. I chose to attend there because I wasn't a particularly excellent student in high school and ECU is one of the easier schools to get into. It is also a state school and is only about an hour from where I went to high school so it just seemed like the right choice.
However, I became very aware of this university's partying ways very early on in the process.
Sights like the one above are not for a birthday, or a particular holiday, this is just what the swimming pool area of most apartment complexes look like basically every weekend and a lot of the weekdays.
The downtown area of Greenville, North Carolina (home of ECU) is basically one massive area consisting of just bars and clubs or at least that was the case when I attended university there back in the mid 90's.
Halloween is such a huge event in downtown Greenville that the police actually mark of the streets and it is a gathering that rivals Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Thankfully, there haven't been many instances of violence but there was one year that they banned the downtown celebration after a few people were stabbed the year prior and the East Carolina students simply could not be contained. Instead, word traveled underground to move the party elsewhere.
The university re-instated the downtown allowance for Halloween the following year because this was far more difficult to contain and of course it increased the opportunity for people to drink and drive. This was not an issue in the downtown areas since a vast majority of the students live within walking distance of this area.
In the 4 years I was at school I never once attended a class on November 1st and I was not alone in this...
Another regular occurrence was something called "late nights": This would get organized by an individual around 1am since the bars were forced to close at 2am. Said person would run around to all their friends and say "late night at my house, 2 bucks a cup!" and if you were interested you would pass over your $2 and a keg would get delivered to that guy's place and the party would continue there in their yard and apartment. My own apartment was the location for a great many of these and man oh man were they fun.
These parties would go from 2:15 in the morning until the next day or once the keg was dry, it was normally the second thing.
The whole ecstasy craze happened while I was in college and I only did that drug once. It was far too much of a long-term commitment in my mind. I understand those people were having a great time but when you are not on it and you see someone who is, they just look weird.
Obviously, a lot of our grades suffered but for me, I think it kind of taught me a lot about life and responsibility. For one thing, it was a good idea to never sign up for classes that started before 10am, past 12 noon was preferable if they were available. It simply wasn't possible to attend class after you had been drinking for that amount of time.
I think the dropout rate at ECU was probably a lot higher than most other Universities and very few of the people that I was friends with in these circles actually finished their degrees in 4 years. I was only able to do so because I went to some summer school classes.
So there you have it: East Carolina University rarely wins any sort of academic or athletic praise, but they are at the top of at least one list every year and I am very proud to have been a part of it.