Hence, college students often find themselves in a developmental vacuum with no children to remind them of what they have been and no adults to act as models for what they might become. The absence of adults is especially detrimental for, as Harvard psychiatrist George Vaillant has persuasively shown, the most significant vehicle for post-childhood development is a mentoring relationship between a young person and an admired adult. Age isolation also tends to reinforce the powerful hold of youth culture on college students. This culture rejects the traditional view that sees youth as a transitional stage between childhood and adulthood, claiming instead that youth should be sustained for as long as possible and adulthood should be avoided like the plague. For all of its exhilaration and excitement, however, youth culture can only produce a repetition of adolescent forms of thought and action with no impetus toward development into mature forms of personal and social life.
Personal development occurs most dramatically in social interactions.
It is in these interactions that students develop skills to relate to others, learn to deal with rejection and satisfy their needs to be known and loved for who they are. If the college social scene is dominated by alcohol and drugs, intoxication makes it exceedingly difficult to develop social skills, heighten responsiveness or deepen relationships. If every party centers on alcohol, students cannot confront new social problems to solve, find new ways of interacting with others or develop new possibilities for the deeper realization of the basic needs for recognition, empathy and friendship. Another part of social life where growth can take place is in campus discussions about vital issues. If these discussions teach students to tolerate differences of opinion, listen carefully to all sides of a complex issue and feel the intense emotions of the participants without becoming overwhelmed before reaching a reasoned, thoughtful conclusion, maturity can and will develop.