Brianna Topchev

Professor Schoolman

Research Methods

18 October 2021

Fieldwork Using Participant-Observation

Notes:

The location is Queens, one of, if not the most popular bar on the Rutgers campus. It is a

Tuesday night, my group of 4 other friends and I arrive at the bar at approximately 10:45 pm.

When you first arrive at Queens there is a bouncer, usually more than one but only one tonight,

assuming because it is a Tuesday to check ids. This leads me to assume all participants in this

scene are over the age of 21 unless they were able to get in with a fake id. However, I heard a

few conversations over the course of the night where people discussed how it was very difficult

to successfully use a fake id to get into this particular bar. The conversations I heard explained

that many of these people’s friends have tried and were denied entry. This leads me to believe the

bouncers at Queens take their job pretty seriously and also have a really secure method of

checking ids. Tonight at Queens was “pajama” night, neither I nor one of my four friends

participated. However, what I did not know until arriving at the bar, was that if you wore

pajamas you were given a free t-shirt which may have prompted me to participate. Upon arriving

at the bar and observing the crowd, I would say that only about a third of the crowd was wearing

pajamas. I did not wear pajamas because I was putting in the effort to go out to the bar, I wanted

to wear clothes I felt good in, a nice outfit, and wonder if my friends and most of the other bar

patrons felt the same. Once you get past the bouncer at the front entrance of Queens, there is a

service bar to the right as soon as you walk in in the front section of the building that is much
narrower than the back of the building. The front of the building gets crowded very quickly as

many people stop as soon as they walk into the building to buy a drink at the first bar or, say hi

and talk to friends and peers they see as soon as they walk in. This space fills up so quickly

because it is so small and narrow. Tonight when my friends and I walked into Queens we went

right past this narrow space, pushed past the crowd, and headed towards the other half of the

building that is a bit less narrow and is typically much less crowded. There is another service bar

back here that is a bit easier to order a drink at as well. My friends and I typically go to this area

of the building every time we go to Queens. In this section of the building, there are tables

pushed up against the wall you can sit at or place your drink down at, there is also plenty of room

to move around without bumping into anybody and room to dance. On weekend nights this space

usually gets as overwhelmingly crowded as the front, but the crowd is a bit lighter, probably

because it is a Tuesday. Though it is a Tuesday night, it is important I note, the bar is still

relatively crowded, it is not dead in any sense. Besides the four friends, I arrived with I saw

many of my friends, acquaintances, and peers out at the bar as well.

Observing how the people around me were ordering drinks at the bar, it became clear a

person very rarely went up to the bar and ordered a drink just for themselves. The bar was

consistently very busy, and it was not easy to get the bartender’s attention as you were competing

with many others to get their attention. This made the easiest method of getting drinks, sending

one person up from a group to order multiple drinks for multiple people in the group at a time.

Within being at the bar for 5 minutes one of my friends in my group of five asked me and two of

my other friends what we wanted to drink then, pushed to an open spot at the bar and got the

bartender’s attention. She ordered us four vodka red bulls. When you order drinks at the bar the

bartender will ask if you want to keep your tab open to order more drinks throughout the night or
to close it and pay right then and there, after being handed your drink. My friend closed her tab

after being handed the drinks. My friend did not ask us to pay for the drinks after she handed

them to us, this is common practice between my friends and I as there is an assumption everyone

will eventually be the one friend who has to go up to the front and order drinks for the rest of us.

We assume this will be an equal amount and everyone will eventually pay each other back in the

form of buying a drink. Once my friends and I began to sip the drinks we all individually noted

the drinks were stronger than normal and harder to get down than the drinks we usually get from

Queens.

It is important to note that virtually all of the employees at Queens are fellow Rutgers

students. The bouncers and the bartenders are made up of students, who know many of the

patrons personally coming into the bar. A few of my friends even know these employees

personally on a friend or acquaintance level, I personally do not. Observing the way these

employees and the people they knew interacted tonight it was clear those who the employees

knew were treated as a priority and given more attention than those they did not. The bouncers’

demeanors completely changed once their friends or acquaintances walked in, getting a lot less

serious and way more welcoming. The process of checking these bar patrons' id's seemed a lot

more relaxed. Furthermore, those who knew the bartenders did not have to endure the same wait

time as the general population to order their drinks. The bartenders, of course, paid special

attention to their friends and acquaintances attending to their drink orders first. Also, they were

very clearly pouring the alcohol a bit more heavily for these patrons.

My friends and I only stayed at Queens for a little under an hour and really just stayed

towards the back of the building, sipping our one drink, and making conversation with each other

and those around us. The most exciting event of the night was probably when one of my friends
began putting ice down our shirts, and we all followed suit trying to put ice from our drinks

down each other’s shirts. We exited out of the back door just past the bar in the back of the

building. They have an employee man this backdoor to make sure no one is trying to come in

without getting their id checked and also probably to make sure those leaving the bar are okay.

The bouncer opens the back door for us, we say goodnight to him and we leave.

Analysis:

Queens struck me as the perfect fieldwork site. I feel every time I go to Queens with

friends the night ends up going very differently each time. This made the fieldwork site similar to

me, yet a unique experience. I felt this site would be especially relevant to myself and my

classmates as it displays the social interactions between our peers at a social event many of us

will or have attended. It is much more interesting for a class of Rutgers students to hear findings

on the site of a popular bar on campus as opposed to findings from a bar say outside the Rutgers

campus where a random population of adults would congregate. I thought it would be even more

interesting to observe Queens on a Tuesday night, a random weekday, to see if this changed the

dynamic of the site compared to a weekend where more students are likely to go out to the bar.

The other main question I had going into the fieldwork site was how many of the bar patrons

would participate in “pajama” night which I observed to be less than half of the patrons.

I found many of my findings to be very interesting and important. First, the fact that the

dynamic of the bar did not change drastically from what it would be on a weekend night. My

assumption before going to the bar was that it would be drastically, noticeably less crowded,

quieter, bar patrons would be tamer, less energetic. I figured students may order fewer drinks and

want to be less intoxicated. This was my assumption because many students most likely have
homework to get done on a weeknight, and have class in the morning the next day, discouraging

heavy drinking, and staying out late. Though this assumption was true for my group of friends

and me, we only ordered one drink and stayed for a short period of time and did not participate in

any dancing, the same was not true for the rest of the bar. The bar was very crowded, I had to

push through patrons to make my way to the back of the building. The bar was very loud, and I

did not notice a difference in the consumption of alcohol of those around me compared to what I

have observed on a weekend night. It appeared those at the bar were not concerned with the

amount they were drinking or how long they stayed. Another finding I felt was important and

interesting was that despite the incentive of a free t-shirt only about a third of the patrons arriving

at the bar were in pajamas. I feel this finding reveals a lot about the emphasis Rutgers students

put on their appearances at social events similar to this one. Another aspect of my findings I paid

close attention to was the dynamic between the employees and the bar patrons they knew

personally. I observed the ways the bouncers would relax the process of checking the ids of those

they knew. Also, the way bartenders would serve those they knew first, and pour stronger drinks

for these people. This is important because it raises questions such as do these bouncers let

people who are underaged into the bar if they know them? Do patrons who know the bartenders

get more intoxicated, for fewer amounts of money? Do bar patrons who know the bartender get

into more alcohol-related accidents due to higher levels of intoxication?

A specific explanatory research question that has occurred to me based on this fieldwork,

is “why do a large quantity of Rutgers students feel comfortable going out to the bar on a

weeknight?” This is an important question to ask from a student at the university’s perspective

because it can reveal a lot about the study habits of their peers and their relationship with their

academics. Even more important and more urgent, investigating this question could even reveal
substance abuse issues amongst students at Rutgers University. To gather research on this

question, a researcher could interview or survey Rutgers Students who are in Queens on a

weeknight. The researcher could ask questions such as, “What time do your classes start on

weekdays?”, “How much time on homework and studying do you spend on a weeknight?”,

“How many times do you go out to the bar a week?”, etc. Questions similar to these, and

students’ answers will reveal the factors that go into a student making the decision to go out to

the bar and drink on a weeknight.