And that's just it. kddani and I are strangers who have exchanged a few PMs about why I didn't come over to the KD board and introduce myself. We ultimately agreed that since I was no longer a KD, I'd use a different screen name. Had we known each other, I might have chosen to discuss my situation, but at the time, I didn't care to.

This is the truest statement. I do think there's a GLO home for most women between NPC, Locals, Professional, MCGLO, NPHC and then the individual organizations that make up each of these. Still, it's not for everyone. One wise Sorority sister once told me that every friend will not make a good Soror. I have seen this play out time and time again. A Sorority, by virtue of being a sisterhood at its core, has certain "group think" elements, no matter how lax or informal. I think "most" women will find a home that fits them, as just being a part of society requires a bit of "group think." However, it doesn't mean that every person is a good fit for my Sorority.

Re: Personality and Greek Life
 

Um, I think that's why you go through rush and pledging... to determine if it's right for you.

Here's another thought...A sorority might be a wonderful fit, but the sorority life might not be! I rushed as a freshman because I loved everything that I knew about sororities. I had wanted to be in one long before I went to college! I loved the idea of late nights with wonderful friends, super-tight friendships that last forever, community service, sharing secrets, wearing pretty sweatshirts (I know it sounds silly), seeing sisters everywhere you go, being part of something with a long, traditional history, etc. However, as I came to understand the "Greek climate" on my campus and as I went through rush, I started getting this queasy feeling in my stomach. On paper, I loved every sorority! But, in the real-life situation of my campus, I knew I fit better into other aspects of campus life than I did into Greek Life. The sororities must have seen it too because I was cut from all but one (out of four chapters). I declined my bid because by that time I began to see that the organizations that I was already involved with (we had deferred rush) were meeting many of the expectations that I had of a sorority (except for the pretty sweatshirt part;) ).

Fortunately, I found Beta Sigma Phi, so I could have everything that I wanted from a sorority without having to go against who I was as a college student.

I agree with "Q" that personality has a lot to do with the "fit," and personal needs come into play as well. I have been involved with Martial Arts for ten years. I love everything about training, but a lot of people see the bowing and yelling and saying "sir" or "ma'am" as weird and even cultish. While I love the discipline and intense workouts, other people see these aspects of training to be excessive or strange. It's all about what you need and what you like.

Erica

I tend to think that there are "joiners" and "non-joiners" in general throughout life. The Joiners end up in organizations and the Non-Joiners don't. The Joiners volunteer to coach or be a cub scout leader, or just help with fund raising for an org, etc. once they have kids, the Non-Joiners don't. I definitely know people who have never belonged to any organization of any type and pretty much scorn the idea. I know more (because I'm a Joiner) who are Joiners and get involved in everything that they can. Over time, you will see the same parents involved in PTA/O, Scouts, rec sports, etc. It's all the same ones.

Different strokes for different folks! Isn't it great that there are orgs for the Joiners to join?

Dee

Well, there was this one incident. As some of you know, wireless networks use this encryption called WEP - wireless encryption protocol. So one day, I hear about this security vulnerability in WEP, something to do with timing. So trying to be like the elite script kiddies on alt.2600, I take some C code to exploit it, modify it a little, and eventually I own the whole network. Someone in campus security sees that something is wrong, and since they can't figure out what's going on, they call in the Kappa Delta incident response team. They find my hack, run it through a decompiler, and recover the original source code. They guessed it was me by looking at the comments and variable names. The Kappa Deltas were really annoyed because some of the sharpest members, the ones who knew how to dial up to the Internet with AOL, had to spend a whole weekend fixing WEP and removing the vulnerability. I guess KD considered this problem behavior.

I have no idea what the heck that means, but it doesn't sound good.

Obviously __Q__ is a hacker and takes pride in her abilities. Translation is that she hacked into a wireless network and wrecked some havoc. Unfortunately her school probably had some rules about it, etc. I wasn't there, obviously, and don't know exactly what the consequences were, but that sort of thing is not something that's tolerated by any sort of network provider, especially educational. Any sort of hacking in a university usually has pretty high consequences. I did tech support for my school and we didn't tolerate it.

Some people think it's cool to hack. But it's malicious- it makes a lot of other people's life difficult (i.e. the people who have to fix it), can tie up network resources for others trying to use the service (Picture not being able to finish your term paper, for example, because you can't access the network).

Again, don't know exactly how it played out, don't know what is meant by "Kappa Delta incident response team", and I certainly don't know what all that detail has to do with this thread.

Thanks for the translation. I understood the first three sentences and then I was lost.

OK, to be really blunt, the previous post was a joke, if not the nicest one. The details were added to make it harder to take seriously. You're right about the first point - there is no Kappa Delta response team that I know of, and it wouldn't make sense for campus security to call a sorority to track down a security problem. Second, there are such things as decompilers but they wouldn't recover variable names or comments for C code. Third, WEP still has the security hole, and the protocol will probably be replaced by a newer and stronger one, rather than "fixed." Fourth, "script kiddie" is not a positive term, and I doubt that a serious hacker would hang out on alt.2600, since it's filled with, well...script kiddies.

The point was that when I posted something negative and sensationalistic about my past, no matter how implausible, you were apparently quick to believe it. When I posted something more truthful but less exciting earlier, you seemed to doubt it. I don't think that this is just you - I think that it's human nature. Same thing with the Alexandra Robbins book. Come on, if I wrote something that basically said, "Well, I used to be in a sorority. The members were generally nice people, but it wasn't for me," who'd buy it?

I don't understand why this is such a big issue. You said yourself it wasn't for you and you left. Why go into any more details than that? If you've been reading, almost everyone has said it's not for everyone but you never know until you try. So you tried and it wasn't. Big deal.

Thousands of people decide that Greek Life isn't for them and leave their respective organizations every year for their own reasons. And we as collective organizations understand that. Some of my good friends decided they didn't want to be members anymore and while I was sad and disappointed, I knew it was their choice to make. I am still friends with them, even though it's been over 5 years since they left and over 3 years since we graduated. Most people, once they resign membership, don't really think about Greek Life again unless their leaving was under less-than-desirable circumstances or they harbor some sort of ill will towards their organization.

Honestly, the only way PNMs are going to know if Greek Life is for them is to go through some sort of recruitment and experience it for themselves. It is their decision to make. We are just here to answer questions and give them any guidance they may need.

Fair enough. To be honest, I actually hadn't thought about it for a long time, and then I read AR's book, got curious about some things, and showed up on GC. People here have been pleasant and helpful, and I think the curiousity has been generally satisfied. So my thanks to everyone who has responded.
BTW, a link that was included in a previous post was apparently offensive to some people (and may have portrayed a GLO unfairly) so I removed it.