They are supposed to be the brightest and the best we have to offer, but yesterday Cambridge students showed they were also some of our biggest drinkers.
The university's notorious end-of-exams 'Suicide Sunday' party lived up to its reputation with a series of alcohol-fuelled garden parties across the city hosted by its drinking societies.
One female student had to be helped by a friend after she appeared to collapse unconscious at the side of a road outside Magdalene College's 'Gentlemen's Wyverns' event.
The drinking club was forced to relocate their party from college grounds for the first time in 80 years after a woman student was arrested for punching a spectator during 2008's all-female jelly wrestling competition.
Out of it: A female student lies at the roadside surrounded by concerned friends
Hundreds of students were bussed to Anstey Hall, a restored 17th-century manor house five miles from the city centre.Extra security and police were also drafted in to patrol the party, while other college celebrations were cancelled.
Despite the new venue the end-of-exams celebration followed the same format with a blazers and bikini theme, riotous drinking games and plenty of vomiting.
'The way the students were behaving was absolutely disgusting,' said one passer-by. 'It was only midday on Sunday and there were lots of families and young people around enjoying the sunshine.
'The students were lying across the verges, lots of them were vomiting and they were singing rowdy drinking songs.
Tired and emotional: An apparently unconcerned police officer looks on as the girl is helped by a friend. She eventually gets to her feet and, with a shoulder to lean on, heads off to recover
'I understand they want to celebrate the end of their exams but they were completely out of control.'The Wyverns' party kicked off at 11am and after just an hour many graduates had drunk themselves into oblivion.
'The Wyverns aren't popular with the university officials and after last year's arrest they didn't want anything to do with the party,' said one student, from Magdalene College.
'We were told the party would have to be held away from college grounds. But hundreds of people have still turned up and this year has been bigger and better than ever.'
The party-goers shouted and cheered as the girls hurled jelly at each other in an inflatable paddling pool.
'It was a very hot day and some students drank far too much,' said one graduate, from Trinity College, who did not want to be named.
How Cambridge University's newspaper, Varsity, covered the event. Women students from Sydney Sussex College perform as the 'Sydney Sluts' at a garden party
Unsteady: Two friends help keep each other up during Sunday's parties, which mark the end of the academic year
'The event involves lots of drinking games and you soon lose track of how much you've drunk.'A lot of people could hardly walk by the end of it.'
Many students later moved onto garden parties hosted by other drinking societies including the Squires of Gonville and Caius and the Trinity Hall Crescents, who are the only ones still allowed to host their celebrations on college property.
Between the parties lots of students faced gruelling initiations such as drinking a non-alcoholic beverage through a fish smeared in marmite and licking cream off a half-dressed stranger.
One student was taken to Addenbrooke's Hospital with a broken ankle midway through his initiation which involved tackling a university under-20 rugby player.
Students gather in the sun ahead of a day's partying to celebrate th end of their exams
The theme for Magdalene College's Wyverns' party was bikini. Women students entered the annual jelly wrestling contest
Another fresher was taken to hospital after falling down a flight of stairs.The Newnham Nuns' garden party was cancelled by the college and many students have been forced to hold initiations in secret.
Natasha Wear, president of the Newnham Nuns, said: 'The college needed to be seen to be doing something to combat the problem of binge drinking.
'Our garden party was fully organised but the college wouldn't let it go ahead.
'They cancelled the party as a punishment for the bad press we have had in the past.'
Last year classics student Nadia Witkowski, 23, was given a caution for common assault after losing the jelly wrestling contest at the Wyverns party and punching a female spectator.
Ready for fun: Three girl students arrive at the start of the event yesterday
The Wyverns drinking society has a reputation for its hard partying and excessive drinking.Its initiation ceremony involves eating a 15-course meal with delicacies such as a pig's snout with wasabi sauce and a pint of water with a goldfish swimming inside.
This year's ceremony featured raw leeks, whole uncooked squid and entire chillis.
The four prospective members then had kippers put round their necks and had to down four pints in three minutes each containing food, spices and other foreign liquids.
Police said there were no arrests.
The drunken parties come just a day after a senior bishop has criticised middle-class drinkers who binge on alcohol.
The Rt Rev John Gladwin, the Bishop of Chelmsford, said it was the more affluent members of society who were behind the rise in alcoholism and claimed they were just as irresponsible as drunken youths roaming the streets.
He told a Sunday newspaper: 'While we do have a significant problem among young people, not least the binge drinking that breaks out onto our streets, that is not the issue. Growing prosperity is behind the rise in alcoholism.
'Often poorer people in society haven't got the protection - the safety of jobs and homes - so when young people do go out clubbing it's all very public, whereas for older people you can collapse at home at the weekend and have levels of alcohol consumption that are just as bad.
'People in the middle-classes have got into habits of high levels of alcohol consumption without thinking through the implications for the whole community. They can't turn around and complain about another generation who, with cheap alcohol and easy access to it, are doing the same but more publicly.'
An NHS report released last month showed one in four adults in England are now classed as "hazardous" drinkers.
The cost of alcohol-related harm to the NHS in England is £2.7 billion and rising.
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