Greek organizations help build networks that often prove beneficial to students when looking for internships, employment, recommendations, or employees. The connections gained through your organization, both within your university and at the national level, can have serious long-term benefits.
There are currently more than nine million alumni of fraternities and sororities working out there in the real world. Joining one of these organizations makes you the member of an exclusive club. This membership affords you an instant connection with any other members of that club.
As you advance in your college education and your career, these connections can become increasingly valuable for landing interviews, listing references, or getting letters of recommendation. Imagine showing up for your first day on a new job in your nicest shirt, every hair in place, and your fingernails nicely manicured. Hazing is technically forbidden, but the reality is that it still happens and is fairly widespread. At least one hazing death has occurred on a North American campus every year since As noted above, this is the leading cause of costly insurance.
You should also bear in mind that not all new member hazing is brutal. Some of it may just be annoying or mildly demeaning. Most commonly, pledges are asked to do trivial, pointless tasks, many that may be publicly humiliating. Pledges are often required to prove their worth and learn their place in the pecking order of a fraternity or sorority.
The real test is whether the activity is harmful to you or others. Second, would I allow someone I care about to do the same thing? Perhaps one of the better kept secrets about Greek life is all the good that fraternities and sororities do. Many work hard to instill a culture of service and philanthropy.
Involvement in philanthropic activities varies from one organization to the next, and even from one chapter to the next. Still, most chapters do provide pathways to involvement in some sort of community service project or philanthropic endeavor. Many chapters even have leadership positions dedicated to this aspect of Greek life. Members in charge of service initiatives will delegate responsibilities, log the hours contributed by each member, and coordinate service events and fundraisers.
Every national organization has an award which recognizes the service contributions of its most outstanding chapter. Without exception, the chapters that win these awards are always aggressively involved in philanthropy and community service. Some chapters raise tens of thousands of dollars every year for their charity of choice while instilling a lasting appreciation for the value of philanthropy and community service among members.
Alcohol and illegal drugs are a common hazard for Greek organizations. The vast majority of hazing-related deaths have resulted from forced binge drinking. But the risks of excessive alcohol consumption are not limited to new members, nor do they stop once pledging is over. In some cases, as in the case of FAMU student Robert Champion, hazing can be deadly, but it still continues even with the publicity over the past several years!
But most of all, the biggest reason why you should join a fraternity is that you will have lasting memories for the rest of your life. From pledging, to college life, to post-grad life, you will experience many highs and lows thanks to your fraternity brothers. Rushing a fraternity is generally much more informal than rushing a sorority. Fraternities often have a formal rush like sororities, but during rush , they also have informal events.
If the brothers decide a potential new member is fraternity material, they'll extend a formal bid. A fraternity or sorority is basically a social club. They're normally not always gender segregated, and they sometimes have a specific racial, cultural, or religious focus. Members pay dues, have the option to live in a communal house, and participate in social events with the rest of the fraternity.
If the brotherhood has respected your decision to leave the pledging process, remember that each fraternity has pledging activities specific to what they are trying to teach new members. Once you 've informed members of the fraternity that you are no longer interested in pledging , stop attending pledging activities. Bring Food: 7. Bring 15 Handles of Alcohol Per Person: 6. Split Into Groups of Four: 5. Say You're a Cop: 4. Here's how you can navigate fraternity parties as an unaffiliated member.
Show up with a few girls. Go to "open" parties. Go to parties later in the night. Attend the party with a friend that's in Greek life. Get to know the brothers of the fraternities. Get a text if you want to go through formal recruitment.
The definition of a sorority is a social club for females, typically at a college or university, where the girls call each other "sisters," and do activities together.
Here are 9 reasons you may want to avoid going Greek this year. It costs big bucks. You'll feel super smug and relieved when you get skip Rush Week. It's way more fun to come up with your own silly costume party themes. Your school is full of interesting people who don't vibe with Greek culture. Rush week , more officially known as recruitment week , is the period of time when fraternities and sororities recruit students to their respective Greek letter organizations.
Rush week usually happens right in the beginning of the school year. The first Greek letter group for women, Kappa Alpha Theta, began in Many students joined these groups as a way to gain an instant circle of friends. Historically divided by race. In the beginning, membership in Greek organizations was segregated across racial and ethnic lines.
The first fraternities were all white, and none of them admitted African-Americans until the midth century. Its first non-black member joined in the s. Sigma Alpha Mu, when it was formed in , was open only to Jews; starting in , the fraternity allowed any man "of good moral character" to join. Little data is available about the current racial makeup of American fraternities, but Princeton is an exception.
The school gathered demographic information in and that showed students who are white and from higher income families are more likely to go Greek. Is there hazing in sororities? In sororities, problematic hazing sometimes involves heavy drinking "but in no way, shape or form does it match what happens in male fraternities," said Hank Nuwer, who's been tracking reports of hazing at US colleges for decades.
But, he added, "if it's less serious, it doesn't mean it's acceptable. In a written statement , NPC chairman Carole Jones said both men and women bear responsibility in the "fight against hazing, alcohol abuse and dangerous party cultures on college campuses. Our aim is to build partnerships with our student life colleagues and with industry leaders that lead to sustainable solutions to these vexing challenges. Accusations of sexual misconduct.
Sexual assault on college campuses has been a problem for generations, and news stories over the years about fraternity members engaging in sexual misconduct have put the fraternity system under a microscope. Cornell University put Zeta Beta Tau on probation after finding out its members had set up a contest in which new members would earn points for sleeping with women, according to the school's website.
A study by researchers at the College of William and Mary found that fraternity men were three times more likely to commit rape than other men on college campuses.
The study's authors compared the rates of sexual assault among men who joined fraternities to the rates of sexual assault among men who did not join fraternities. Related story: 'Rapebait' email reveals dark side of frat culture.
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