By Kate Augusto

A girl vomiting in a Stetson West bathroom; an alcohol transaction in front of 319 Huntington Ave.; an unconscious student lying in a Stetson West hallway. This is how some students introduced themselves to a new school year, and to Northeastern’s Office of Student Conduct and Conflict Resolution (OSCCR.)

Despite incidents like these, Jim Ferrier, director of Northeastern’s division of public safety (NUPD) said early last week that about half the number of students got in trouble for alcohol violations at the beginning of this year compared to the number from the same time last year.

“The majority of activity [in the start of the year] is always from freshmen. [But] it seems to settle out as the novelty of being in college wears off,” Valerie Randall-Lee, director of OSCCR, said in an e-mail. “People get wise to what college is all about, or people discover you can’t party regularly and get good grades. Some discover that the university really will enforce its rules.”

Thirty-four students, most of them underage, were reported by NUPD officers in the first full weekend at Northeastern, said Ferrier.

“Historically it’s the first couple of weekends [where students party the most]. Even though [students] hear [that we will be tough], they don’t think we really mean it,” Ferrier said.

NUPD officers confiscated 650 cans of beer, two beer balls and 24 bottles of hard liquor from Thursday, Sept. 6 to Sunday, Sept. 9. More alcohol was also confiscated the weekend before and during Welcome Week.

Some of the students who got in trouble with alcohol that weekend were not Northeastern students, Ferrier said, which is a good sign.

“Twenty-two [of the 34] were our own students, five were from other colleges and seven weren’t students at all,” he said.

These numbers do not include students who got written up by Resident Assistants (RAs), but only those who got in trouble through NUPD, Ferrier said.

While official numbers are down, students like Ashley Biss, a sophomore communication studies major, said there was as much partying as ever.

“The first weekend of this year was very, very crazy. I don’t know if it was the lack of RA surveillance in leased properties or the fact that people don’t have to be signed in, or the co-ed floors, but it was so much more chill and people were a lot more loose and there was no reason to worry about getting written up,” she said. “This being compared to last year when I was home by 12:30 each night for the first few week fairly sober