The School of drugs

HMKW Berlin is a two thousand people crowded microcosm of international cultures an divergent habits that crash in the corridors and in the classrooms of its red bricks’ building. We uncovered its features and its taboos with a survey that profiles nothing less than the students’ drug usage. And the results are revealing.

According to the German Centre for Higher Education Research and Science Studies, only 1 per cent of German students have used cocaine at least once, whereas 17 per cent of HMKW students state that they did. And the same goes for MDMA, Ketamine or Ecstasy.

How do we know? And why is that? Bare with us to find out. But first a quick story.

A day in the shoes of a most representative HMKW student:

“I know! It’s my favourite show. And I love Eleven!" shouts Lisa (fictional character) at the phone. “I can’t believe the second season is over already.” She spent the weekend locked in her room watching Stranger Things. Most of her friends saw it already – 76% of them, to be precise – and since tonight will have dinner with them, spoilers were a guarantee.

In any and every sense, Lisa is the most typical HMKW student. She is 23 years old, born in Germany and she is doing her bachelor in business psychology. As you might have already guessed, she loves Netflix, but she still hang out with her friends once or twice a month. Tonight as well. And it’s a girl’s night!

Lisa Schröder Age: 23 Female Germany BA. Media Psychology Studies 1-5 hours per week at home Goes out 1-2 times a week Eats veggies every day Listens to Hip Hop Loves Netflix Uses drugs

Lisa’s best friends are all studying in a different master course: Cristina in Communication and Design, Jane in Convergent Journalism and Pablo in Business and Psychology. They are her best friends, and they have so much in common. They are all between 21 and 25, were not born in Germany, go out once or twice a week and eat veggies every day. Maybe that’s why they are eating ratatouille tonight.

But don’t let their healthy eating habits trick you, these girls knows how to party! As soon as the dinner is over, they all get ready and hit their favourite club in Berlin. And yes, they will use drugs. Why? Because HMKW students use much more drugs than the average German student.

Such a divergence deserves an explanation. First of all, our data don’t have a scientific value. We couldn’t control the sample on which we based the evaluation to make sure that it respected the composition of HMKW’s students. We also couldn’t control the way in which the survey itself was filled. Nonetheless, the survey can claim solidity. We collected a respectable amount of answers 150 on about 2000 students. We also repeatedly improved the survey on the base of several tests in order to make it as easy and quick to fill as possible.

Most importantly, the way in which we collected the data (through mobile phones or any other device, mainly at the university’s cafeteria where the students were chilling) made the respondents feel very confortable and possibly drove them to more openness than what a more standardized and more rigid kind of survey could achieve.

Comparisons

Fun facts:

Did you know that

• German students eat less salad than international students. Actually, they are more likely to eat fast food everyday.
• Talking about drugs seems easier than talking about romantic life. Only 13% of HMKW students say that they use Tinder.
• Berlin is the capital of Techno. 38% of the students are into this kind of music.
• Less than 5% of the students use synthetic drugs every week.
• Conciliate social and academic life is possible in HMKW. Those who study more than 10 hour a week at home also go to nightclubs frequently.
• 15% of HMKW students are vegetarian

Why:

Reasons behind the difference between HMKW students and German students’ drug usage.

1. The way in which we collected the data (through mobile phones or any other device, mainly at the university’s cafeteria where the students were chilling) made the respondents feel very confortable and possibly drove them to more openness than what a more standardized and more rigid kind of surveis could achieve.
2. International students in a relatively expensive private school might have more money to invest in drugs than countryside’s universities.
3. It’s Berlin.