College students’ compulsive need to experiment is beyond anything comprehensible. To them, the college living experience means no rules, no nagging, no curfew and being in control of your decisions. Unfortunately, most of our colleges are over saturated with peer pressure which is accompanied by drug and alcohol abuse, as well as illicit affairs with the supposed working class for material gain.

When we receive the freshmen, their backgrounds, characteristics, and reasons for attending vary widely; surprisingly, they usually have one goal in common: getting education. In fact if you ask first year students what it takes to make a successful transition to college, their intuitive response is, "brains and hard work.” However, their intuition does not match up their behavior after joining college. Their thirst for knowledge and unswerving ambition soon takes a nosedive when they come to reality with college life.

Before long, they join the bandwagon and begin missing classes, their dressing style change, even the religious ones drop their pious ways and embrace the campus carefree secular life that scoffs religion. Some students may endure unhealthy friendships and romantic relationships at this stage. Others will embrace the negative components of peer pressure in college life.

Often, when the term peer pressure is used, our minds think of high school. However, it is a trend equally common even in colleges. It evolves when one person feels bad about saying no to a friend’s request. For example, students will often influence each other to use substances despite school responsibilities or indirectly make their colleagues seek debauched means of getting money in order to live a different lifestyle. Eventually, we end up with a group of students with retakes and poor grades.

Alcohol and drug use is increasing steadily on our college campuses, especially among the male students. Such students commonly have a decline in academic performance, drop classes regularly, and practice sexual promiscuity. Attempts to quit may be futile if such a student remains in the same party environment. The best option for a student in this position is to disassociate with his disreputable friends and see a counselor.

The female students are however attracted to the lives lived by the rich girls on campus. Lest we forget, university life can be very challenging especially if you are broke. Naturally, ladies want to adorn different clothes, shoes and hairstyles. They want to have trendy handbags and wear expensive perfumes. A smart phone and a laptop are invaluable here. To them, these define basic needs. This new found freedom sometimes pushes them to wear tight short skirts/dresses that barely cover the subject matter – one must wonder how our male colleagues are expected to cope with this. In a bid to fit in such an exotic society, they succumb to sexual relations with money loaded predators.

Well, one might argue that university is not high school and that if we don’t allow them to practice independence; we may be running the risk of having adult-children utterly devoid of any sense of responsibility. While this is very true, I refuse to subscribe to this school of thought. We can still advice our university students accordingly using a different approach. Would you allow your son to drink himself senseless on the premise that he is an adult and therefore should know what to do?

Building a good rapport with the students will help them open up to you in times of need. We can also encourage them to participate in club activities and sports- keep them engaged. Equally important is incorporation of basic life skills within our lectures- taking the class outside the four walls of a lecture hall. Of course we should never underestimate the power of prayer: submit them in the hands of the Most High. Finally, every university should have a trained counselor(s) who can schedule meetings with students.

When all is said and done, freedom is the new bondage. Our college students need more help than we can imagine. Be more than a teacher to the students.

The writer is a lecturer at The Adventist University of Central Africa