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Thursday drinking and academic load among college women.

OBJECTIVE
Research indicates that alcohol consumption by college students fluctuates across the semester, with consumption changing because of social events and calendar holidays. In addition, some research indicates that Thursday alcohol consumption is a function of Friday course schedule. Students with courses after 10 a.m. or not at all on Friday are more likely to consume alcohol on Thursday nights. Furthermore, college women are increasingly consuming alcohol at higher levels and comprise a larger portion of college students in comparison with their male counterparts. The current study was aimed at examining patterns of Thursday night alcohol consumption and academic load among female college students.


METHOD
College students (N = 383, 100% female) participated in a 10-week paper- and web-based survey on alcohol consumption. After completion of the study, academic records of the participants were retrieved for objective measures of academic load.


RESULTS
Patterns of Thursday alcohol consumption relate to timing and difficulty of the first course on Friday. However, patterns of Thursday alcohol consumption were not related to other aspects of academic load (e.g., number of academic credits, fall semester grade-point average, cumulative grade-point average, other Friday courses).


CONCLUSIONS
It seems that female students who are more likely to consume alcohol on Thursday night have made academic scheduling decisions to allow for this experience. These decisions seem to not adversely affect their grade-point average. Findings suggest that changes to the academic calendar to curb alcohol consumption warrant further investigation.