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in my junior year, i could've probably joined a frat named "farmhouse". i kept on getting invites for their events...even had dinner there a couple times. they were asking me if i was going to join and i was like "maybe" but really i was just there for the free food.
I remembered that I joined a few honor societies with greek names, but they weren't exactly fraternities or sororities. And I don't think we actually did anything together. It was more of a resume builder.
Also, there was a co-ed frat that I spent some time at. It was called St. Anthony's, but it was a chapter of Delta Psi. Very different from the rest of the Greek organizations on campus and I would definitely have considered joining.
Yes, I was hazed a little, and I hazed a little. It was never forced.
When I was hazed, we (myself and the small group of other girls who were joining that semester) were constantly reassured through the process that the older girls would never do anything to hurt us. There was no reason to think otherwise - they had been very kind and inclusive towards us through the semester, showering us with gifts and attention. The hazing itself only occurred twice in the semester, once at our written test on sorority knowledge and once on the night before we were initiated. Both times it was fairly lighthearted, like blindfolding us and making us sit together and sing sorority songs. I think another year some girls got blindfolded and driven around in circles for a while, then they had to touch something gooey. The worst was probably when they asked one girl to sing the alphabet backwards. She was so nervous that she messed it up really badly, which made the rest of us laugh, and then we got yelled at by the girl in charge for laughing. Then some of the older girls painted their faces and wore robes, and held a ceremony with us in very solemn fashion. I actually enjoyed that. Overall I found it very mild, though I think because I joined when I was a little older and had heard a lot of stories from my friends, I was more chill about it than a totally newbie freshman might be. We did have one very feisty freshman who freaked out and felt threatened. I felt like that was an overreaction, but it's also really important not to make anyone feel threatened, and clearly she'd been pushed beyond her threshold.
When I participated in the hazing, there had been some restrictions put on our activities by our advisors, so we couldn't do the late night stuff anymore. We just tricked the new girls into thinking they were all going to get kicked out for about 45 minutes and then revealed the trick, consoled them, and gave them a bunch of presents. The idea was just to give a little fun scare,just building anticipation and having us go through it together, so we have a bonding experience. There is some tension between longstanding chapters who want to keep hazing tradition alive because they find it fun, not dangerous, and as something that links all the sisters together, versus the international governing body who are trying to push anti-hazing because it's such bad PR. I have heard horrific stories of hazing in the media, but I have never personally met anyone who went through anything like that. I'm sure it does exist, of course, but I have not encountered it.
Lol, not at all. If anything, because I got into leadership, it felt more like a government sometimes, or an events committee. Lots of planning and responsibilities. It was never particularly forced. The most "cult-y" thing I suppose is our Initiation ceremony, which we have special outfits for and during which we sing songs written in the 1800s with lots of references from a number of historical sources, including ancient Greek and Roman learning and the Bible. There are no religious beliefs required, however. The only thing close to a tenet focuses on scholarship, seeing as fraternal organizations are first and foremost academic subgroups.
Were you just lucky in the people you met, or would you recommend houses of that nature to anyone?
I would recommend talking to the people in the group and getting a feel of the culture of the group. It really varies by chapter though, so you can't even go by individual sorority or fraternity. I do think I got lucky, but I also think my choice of school had a lot to do with it. I went to a smaller, artsy school, and the Greek life there reflected that. I have met girls in my sorority from other schools and heard them talk about their experiences, and I think that at a number of their schools, I would never have joined. My advice to anyone would be to join if you enjoy organized socialization and if you find a group that makes you feel comfortable, welcomed, and worthwhile.
What were the negatives? What were the positives, beyond what you've already mentioned?
The biggest negative was probably the amount of time it took in my life, but that's kind of both a pro and a con. I got really into sorority leadership, and I could have been doing more academically (I still did research, Honors, and studied abroad - not like it ate my entire life). I would just advise anyone interested to understand that it's a large time commitment, and there are responsibilities - though some people get less involved and stay on the fringe as much as possible, and that minimizes the time constraints. Also, there was a lot of drama. This is true in frats, too. Whenever you associate that closely with a consistent group of people, male or female, there's personal drama. I didn't really have any of it revolve around me, so I was fine listening to it and hearing about it from others. It didn't really impact me much. My last thought is it did cost a fair amount of money. I had an on-campus job so I pretty much broke even in that respect.
As for positives... I think first for me would be the amount of empowerment. It really helped me come out of my shell and feel competent in the social sphere. I went from being super shy and disorganized to being much more self-confident and organized. I made a lot of good friends, many of whom I'm still in contact with (though only close contact with a handful). I met a lot of really inspiring people doing lots of different things with their lives. I learned how to work with people with all different kinds of styles of doing things, how to plan, how to coordinate with multiple associations including faculty and staff, how to run a hundred-person event. I learned about PR and how to handle a crisis. I had a lot of fun at our activities and events, and I almost always had people to do something with. I was never lonely and I was never bored. I also took a position where I helped advise girls who were struggling academically, and it was pleasing to give back in that way. And there are sorority sisters all over the country... there's a huge support network and a world that I belong to if I ever need or want it.
It probably depends a fair amount on the chapter. My chapter was around 35 people, so that's fairly small when you consider it's subdivided into 8 semesters' worth of pledge classes (people inducted each semester) - so basically only around 5 girls per pledge class. Even though we were all one large group and interacted together often, within those large events we still tended to break apart into littler groups of closer friends. So it was not like you had to interact with the whole group all the time. Personally I'm very ambiverted and I found the need to be "on" socially overwhelming at first, but as I got to know everyone it became much easier for me. At least in my experience, it was hardest my first semester when I had to get to know everyone. After that it was much easier to interact in smaller settings, and to just meet the younger new girls each semester, which for me felt much lower-pressure because I was already on the "inside".
I'm pretty sure there was at least a handful of introverts in my chapter. They tended to revolve around their personal interests / causes and find their "niches" where they could comfortably deal with so many people, with the organizational structure as a bit of a buffer. I think it would be the hardest on a solitary, independent introvert who likes to come and go as they please, but for an introvert who enjoys social belonging and structure, the organized format actually lends a degree of compartmentalization and predictability that can make it easier, in my opinion, to socialize.
I hope it gives a more realistic picture of Greek life than what is stereotypically portrayed. That sort of Animal House experience does seem to exist in certain places, but it's definitely not a ubiquitous thing. For the most part, the people at my school involved in Greek life (particularly the ones who went into leadership) tended to be the overacheiver type more than the partier type.
It does seem to me that fraternities and sororities are not monolithic. I'm not too knowledgeable about them, because my school didn't have them, but judging someone solely based on membership in one seems a little harsh.
And yes we don't have Greek fraternities at the Australian National University, we do have many clubs and societies and we even founded a new society of our own that was very successful.
I most remember the large picnics in our beautiful environment as well as the extraordinary permutations and combinations of relationships within our society, as well as being touched by personal tragedy.
It was a magical time in a magical place - quite like, Wind in the Willows.