Should I be Ashamed? Cedar Fest and MSU

I opened the front page to see an article labelled "I am Ashamed of my School". I'm too damned lazy to link, sorry folks.

Anyway, I have a predicament where I SHOULD be embarassed. I go to Michigan State University. Infamous party school and home to the Cedar Fest riots which I attended this year. I just finished my freshman year and I am already sick of tired of the reputation. Don't get me wrong I LOVE IT, it's my new home.

However, I am sick of telling people that I go to MSU and they say "ohhh the party school, right?". Yeah, that's it, not the one with nationally ranked programs and almost 50,000 people. I feel pidgeon-holed into being a partier and not concerned with my grades. Not everyone can get in to MSU; if people decide to fuck around once they get here that's fine with me but obviously they did something right to get in, even if it was just having the right parents or something.

So I attended Cedar Fest this year and it was AMAZING. Although I was only there for about two hours (completely sober mind you) the pure energy and excitement was ridiculous. However, I find it ridiculous that when you get a group of guys together it becomes a contest of who can out do the other or show off.

By the end of the night it basically became who can set off the cops. They surrounded the crowd on rooftops the entire time and video taped the event. They had spot lights and megaphones and the sort too. I cannot tell you the number of times that I heard people say "TEAR GAS US!" or the chants of tear gas. People just want to say they were there. They want to tell people how "bad ass" they were.

I do feel robbed though. Maybe my mindset is that of a typical college person but everyone wants to say they were there and say that happened to them, right?