Alcohol Awareness Web Site Educates College Students

2/17/2009

The Michigan Journal

By Krystal Caldwell

Going off to college is like a license to let loose and have fun, especially if one goes away to school. But there's more to college than parties and consuming copious amounts of alcohol. Therefore, one Boston-based company is educating college students on the risks they are taking by drinking so much.

Outside The Classroom, founded in 2000 by Brandon Busteed, was established to address epidemic-level public health concerns affecting education, corporate and government organizations.

Their Alcohol EDU program was created to help users make healthy and safe decisions about alcohol while attending college and is used on more than 500 colleges and universities nationwide.

The course is divided up into two parts with a total of five modules. The first part consists of finding out where you stand with a pre-test and mounds of information, followed by another exam. It only takes about two to three hours to complete.

The second part of the program is taken 30 to 45 days after completion of part one. All answers, including essay answers, are kept strictly confidential, but the final grade will be reported back to the institution that assigned the program (and yes, you can retake the exam if you failed it).

During the 2004-2005 school year, 20 national Greek organizations took the Alcohol EDU course. Of the almost 13,000 students who completed the program, about 9500 reported that they now knew more about their blood alcohol concentration and the number of heavy-episodic drinkers who did not see a need to change their habits dropped 34 percent after completion of the program.

Since its inception, over a million users have graduated the educational program and the company has built up what is now the world's largest evaluative database on college alcohol attitudes and behaviors.

More information on Outside The Classroom and Alcohol EDU can be found www.outsidetheclassroom.com and http://college.alcoholedu.com.