Attention People from SoCal
 

Hey all,
So I am planning on going to Grad School at a school in SoCal, and I am wondering what the Greek scene there is like.

How big is Greek life?
How active are the Greeks there in their communities?
What is the university stance towards Greek life?
How big are Multicultural Greeks at that school (BGLO, LGLO, AGLO, etc)
How big are Asian Greeks?

FYI, it doesn't have to be USC, it can be any SoCal school for that matter.

Thanks!
Nate

I'm pretty sure the Asian greek scene here is probably better than any other place in the nation. Especially when you have schools like UCI, UCR, UCSD and what not. They aren't strong at UCLA, USC or many of the Cal States though.

Latino greek scene is alright, but I mean its not huge or anything. i think schools like Cal St LA, Cal State Dominguez Hills (It's a real school) have more latino greeks than any other school.

Black GLOs are not that strong.

All in all, the greek scene in socal is lacking. you won't find any crazy frat houses or anything like that. You won't that much tradition either. And none of us really care anyways. Theres more to life in SoCal than greek life. Especially if you are in grad school buddy.

Pretty much. The greeks aren't as united, campus oriented or involved in the community as other regions of the country, and the service that IS done is seen as an obligation.

The cultural greeks, however, are a lot bigger and united than other parts of the country. SDSU has the biggest cultural greek council in the country, and that's somehting they're proud of.

But yeah, that's the socal attitude for ya...people mostly just want to stand around and drink...though I say that like it's a bad thing.

That pretty much sums SoCal and NoCals attitude for it. We don't care. I think it's because we all get it. Frat life is fun for 4-8 years (however long it takes to graduate baby), you make a few good friends and thats it. Life goes on after college.

That's right. I guess that's why I'm moving to Boston at the end of the summer...spent 23 years within a 10 mile radius in San Diego. It's time to move on after that long, ardous trip through college.

But hey, I had some fun times while getting here....

But Bobby, what do you think about the 24-30 year olds that still go out and party like they're still in college?

Homie. Boston sucks. Trust me. It's cool for about 2 days, then you realize everyone is ugly, people are pasty and the whole Red Sox shit is just annoying.

Stay in SoCal :(

I need to get out of here. I always thought I was an East Coast kinda guy stuck out west. I want to be in a working class city where people aren't all stuck up about material items. I've enjoyed the beach and the sun for too long. Don't worry man, I know what I'm getting into. I want to go where it's more about substance than style.

Homie I totally missed this for whatever reason. Sorry.

I know exactly what you are talking about. All the people along the coast. Hermosa,HB, Newport. Or your version would be Mission or PB.

homie, I don't care. It's all to the good you know? They are rich, probably don't work and probably don't have to. I want to live like that. Thats the life. The awesome life. Rich, party, no worries. If only one can be that lucky.

I'm not gonna lie, if I could i'd live like Colin Farrel (minus the kissing other boys) and party my ass off.

Or older. lol My friends and I are all 28-40 and go out all the time. Why not? We're single, we like to have fun, its always good for laughs.

Whatever fits your lifestyle. I mean, me and my friends are 24-25 years old and we still know how to enjoy ourselves. The ones who aren't married yet at least.

Bro! Boston sucks! Move to Santa Monica or something man. Lots of young peoples there, more liberal for ya and fun shit to do.

I need out of California Bobby....flight's already been booked...already looking at apartments....

I can't stand The O.C. mentality anymore...I need to get out of my safety net and try the waters elsewhere.

UGH. I am telling you. boston seriously sucks. BOSTON SUCKS BOSTON SUCKS BOSTON SUCKS. The mere fact that I am telilng you it sucks so much, means you are going to try as hard as you can to like it.

Move to Boulder, Colorado or something. How about Scottsdale Arizona.

Hot girls man. Hot white girls. I know you like white girls stan :)

You're seriously the first and only person who's told me this. Everyone else says I'll have a blast. I like what I see, I'm not a SoCal "laid back" guy. I've made up my mind, and if I don't like it, I'll be back.

But, I already like the culture and working class atmosphere. I want to be in a city where the people are down-to-earth and straight forward, not all about superficial things.

And I hate the bandwagon attitude of west coast sports fans. I want to be where there are dedicated fanatics, not just those who take the family out when the team is playing good.

Trust me, I'll be fine.

ok man :) I'm just giving you a hardtime anyways. Boston isn't that bad. I enjoyed it actually, but I'm the type of guy who can enjoy anywhere I go.

Actually the funny thing is, I went to Boston after my Sr. year of HS with my friends. Took a whole east coast trip. It was fun.

Make sure you eat those italian sausages outside of fenway. There is some dude that sells them fro ma cart. I'm not sure if its the sausage guy that RC and Mu AGD talk about, but it might be. Quincy Market is alright, not that great though. Farmers market in LA is better. Fenway is a shithole, dont let that fool you. I even took a Fenway park tours to try to get into the spirit of Fenway, but really. It sucks. Lots of history, but whatever. It still sucks. The women are not really that bad. LOL I'm just messin. But nowhere NEAR the quality of Cali. And the girls there dno't have much substance either bro. So don't think just because you are in Boston, girls there are smarter. Girls are cool because they are cool, not because of the location.

In the Prudential building there is a seafood restaurant called "Legal Seafoods". My friends and I really enjoyed that place. I even have a legal seafoods bib. lol

Legal's a chain you can find it a bunch of places. Decent place, good seafood but you can find better for more reasonably priced.

Dont listen to Bobby Stan, I miss Boston a lot and would love to move back but we'll see how it works out jobwise. If you need any help with apartments and locations let me know!


Anyway back to the OP's question, youre coming out here for grad school why are you asking about the greek lifestyle??

Trust me, I'm trying to loge this into my brain as much as possible before I leave.

I have thought about what I'll be missing once I leave: In N Out, hearing Tupac on a consistent basis, girls treating going to class as if it's a fashion show. But hey, like you said, life goes on.

One point - Legals has gone way down in quality. The food is awful now, but they've still raised the prices. There are much better places around the city to go. Luckily there's another place in Copley, Turner Fisheries, which is awesome. I think it's the best clam chowder in the city. You are correct about the Sausage Guy, though, it's the one who is famous around here.

I love Boston, but then again I've lived here for the past 7 years, so I may be biased. I really like California too, I have a bunch of family out there.

Tristan - if you have any more questions about Boston that weren't answered in your thread, send me along a PM.

Each team has bandwagon fans, you can't put that solely on the socal. Imagine how many Red Sox, and White Sox fans have came out the past two years since they won. I only hope the Cubs don't do it this year, that will ruin baseball. The greek scene in Southern California is decent, it depends what school you are at. You can find lots of GLO's all over the place. San Diego has 4 schools with greeks if you count San Marcos.

Hahah, thanks for all the help everyone!

And as for Greek Life, I plan on being involved on the campus in Greek Life in some form (maybe start a chapter at the school I go to!!! :D ).

So which universities are more strict with Greek Life, which are more laid back, and which are in the middle?

Is the community involvement really minimal tho?

And I'm surprised people say NPHC orgs are small out there. My friends in the Divine 9 tell me its pretty big in SoCal.

Thanks everyone!!

I think the Divine 9 is much like anything else; if you're not looking for it you're not seeing it. In San Diego there're city wide chapters which means your average college student doesn't get bombarded with D9 letters as much as the other GLOs on campus.


Stan~ I'll come pick you up at the airport when you're ready to come back. ;) I'll pick up some In N Out on the way there. Seriously, everyone is shallow everywhere. Even working class folk. They're just shallow about less expensive stuff. :p

HAHA I just spent 3 days in Boston helping my sis pack up her apartment and I totally started missing the FSU college life...it just can't compare! Ditto on the pasty people who do NOT dress up-everyone I know from Florida has all their going out clothes packed in a box because the style is too risque for New England apparently, even in those few days out of the year when its warm enough to dress up that way.

L.O.C.K.-speaking as someone who just finished their first semester of graduate school, I passed on the chance to start a grad chapter (a few of my sisters are involved in the north Florida graduate chapter) because there's just no time. Depending on your major and of course the level of difficulty of the school, you might want to put Greek life on the backburner for the next couple of years. Grad school=no joke. How many chapters of your fraternity are located in that area? You could still support by attending events.

I go to SDSU, and we don't have a chapter of your fraternity, but we have quite a few culturally-based fraternities and sororities. Only one of them has a house, though, while almost all of the IFC and Panhellenic orgs do.

Greek life isn't huge at SDSU because it's a commuter campus - I think its around 10% of the school population. I'd say that our school is pretty laid back with greek stuff, but SDSU is known for being a party school and the cops definitely stake out the fraternity houses looking for parties. My stepdad is a police officer, and he said they patrol SDSU every weekend, but only patrol UCSD like once a year. Hahaha.

As for NPHC, we have 7 organizations from that council, but SDSU is only 4% African-American -- so they're not huge.

I don't know much about UCSD or USD's greek life, besides that I was told USD doesn't allow chapter houses.

There aren't any chapter houses at USD and they weren't at LMU (where I went) but that doesn't mean the Greeks are on life-support or anything. You just have un-official houses or apartments and party elsewhere...works out fine, especially if you don't transfer from a school with houses. Also avoids a TON of problems!

I don't think UCSD has official chapter houses either. It's usually a neighborhood ordinance or similar situation. That was the case @ LMU.

The Latino/Hispanic Greeks were growing at LMU when I graduated (2000) and we had strong AKA and Alpha Phi Alpha chapters.

Occidental just colonized their first Panhellenic sorority (Theta!) but they still have mostly locals, with a few IFC fraternities (ATO is one, I think).

Not sure about multicultural groups at USD.

Since you'll be in grad school, I suggest holding off a bit on starting a chapter. See if you have time. Maybe there's a chapter near where you'll be & you could be an advisor or organize alumni events?

Boston...great place to visit, wouldn't want to live there...mostly due to weather. I have family there & my nephew is a Phi Sigma Kappa @ MIT. While it's historical, super-urban, etc, there are still stuck-up people (smart & stupid ones) and plenty of non-working class folks. My sister & bro-in-law included...a Cal Berkeley & MIT grad...not blue-collar or anything like Good Will Hunting. ;)

Good luck with whatever you choose!

Dude. If you are going to move to SoCal, there are better things to do than start a fraternity. Don't do it. especially if you are in grad school. Waste of time.

And it depends on what your friends in the D9 define as "pretty big". If they consider having 8 guys in a local chapter from 5 schools big, then sure. It's big.

I think one d9 fraternity on my campus was about twice the size of another. The smaller one only had one guy.


Catch my drift?

Where do you plan on going? Good luck with your move to SoCal. It's great out here. I'll name 8 cities to stay away from. Pomona, Riverside, , San Bernadino, Ontario, The Valley, Echo Park and TJ. You stay away from those places and you will pretty much enjoy your life here.

This is what a party at San Diego St is like. Lots of hot girls, lots of hot bods, boobies, beer, if you don't hook up you're a tool.


This is what a party at UCSD is like. Prescription glasses, , 110 lb guys, 150 lb girls, chemistry sets, bunson burners.

The lone time your step dad was called to patrol the UCSD was when the party literally exploded when they mixed chemicals

Just speaking for AKA, our UG chapter is city-wide (three schools are in it). There is also a grad chapter, which I'm a member of.
And in terms of the small numbers, there are a lot of factors at work, incuding the fact that many of our kids want the HBCU experience and are going to school elsewhere.

Bro that's more like Cal. UCSD they don't weigh more than 149.

-Rudey

Homie. At Cal the girls look like big foot.

Homie. At Cal the girls ate big foot.

-Rudey

Jesus, that's not the only reason I'm leaving San Diego....I've been here for 23 years, it's time to frickin leave...

The parties at State have really died down over the years. When I was a freshman, the streets used to be packed. Now, you barely see anyone out, even near Frat Row. Everything is more assigned to small house get togethers. But don't get me wrong, there's still some nice drunkeness going on.

I think Frat Row has hurt the party scene, because now a majority of the houses are centrally located, making it easier for Police to come and break things up if multiple parties are going on. Everything gets broken up by midnight.

Homie. I am big foot :( Stupid bitches ate me. Good think I've got a laptop with me in their stomach.

Hahaha classic!

I wasn't trying to imply the chapters are small, cause I have no idea how big they are. Even assuming that they're the same size as any chapter at any of the local schools, if only a third of the members go to each school, a student will only see fewer people.

I'm rambling now. :D

There's never a good reason to leave San Diego. But go have your fun. I'm sure you'll like Boston. Just remember you can always come back.

I don't why I'm thinking like you moving to Boston means no more Stan on GC. Bring your computer with you and don't forget about us. :(

come on bobby, why you gotta say it like that???


:p

Dude. Remember "Bring It On" ? No one believe me that it was a real school after that movie.

:cool:

<=== still leads the party walk line once in a while

do i remember it??? dude, i LIVED it! haha - well except the whole cheerleading stuff. lolol