How did you learn about Greek life?

[AnchorAlumna]

Originally Posted by Sin*ful

Greeks are not procastinators they are Philosphers......philosphy is their way of thinking that everything on this earth came after them.......I am greek and truthfully that is truth.........we believe that we are the first and last besides God..but that is our thinking and in the Latin somewhat the truth..as you see Alpha Beta schools are in our names of the alphabet..Greek LIfe is embeded in us from birth..but as we get older we attach the new with the old..i.e. church old fashion ...shy old ...attitude new..darn that attitude gonna kills us women..to much attitude causes our greek men now a days to say ohhhhhhhhhhhh hell noooooo..now girls go half way ...our men are beautiful and dont deserve half of what they get ..as much as you think you all that and a bag of chips hell there is one more beautiful WOMAN than you and beauty is not all that now a days ..count on more.......your beauty will get you ONE month and no place else...........THATS GREEK LIFE

Earp may have met his match.

[SWTXBelle]

. . . I don't know - this one might stump her!

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by SWTXBelle

. . . I don't know - this one might stump her!

Ha ha, I was working on it already.

[honeychile]

I've said this before, but literally everyone I knew who went to college was in a fraternity or a sorority. I honestly thought that anyone who wasn't in one had tried to get a bid and failed. I also had the influence of my mother, who wasn't in a sorority herself but her mother was. She did her level best to groom me for my late grandmother's sorority, showing me her pin with the reference of the Holy Grail, painting my room two shades of blue, starting me on a collection of keys. My daddy's aunts were greek, too, but I'm still not sure which one(s). He equated "campus success" with being a greek, also. My high school graduation present was a trip to Portugal - and an upgraded sorority pin, when I pledged.

I sometimes wonder how freaked out my parents would have been had I not gone greek!

[TSteven]

Most of my immediate and extended family are in fraternities and sororities. I also grew up in a college town and the fraternities and sororities were looked on favorably both by the college and in the local community. While growing up, my Mother was active in various alumnae and chapter events - some of which were held in our home. I have brothers who pledged Sigma Chi by the time I was in high school. I use to quiz one for his pledge tests so I was already reading The Norman Shield (Sigma Chi pledge book) at an early age. As a result, I learned a lot. But not just about Sigma Chi but about the history of fraternities in general. And most of my high school peers ended up pledging various fraternities and sororities at different campuses. And I heard about their experiences as well. So by the time I got to college I had a good understanding as what to expect.

Like Dionysus, much of what I know about Greek Life is because of GC. Alpha Gam is still the only NPC sorority at my alma mater, so it's pretty hard learning about other organizations and just being Greek.

When I was pledging, my pledge manual had a section dedicated to NPC/NIC/NPHC information. The NPC info was great because not only was there basic info on each sorority (When founded, where founded, # founders, official flower, jewel, motto, # initiated members), there was also an illustration of their Badge.

I haven't seen the latest version of the pledge, er, New Member Manual...but I'm wondering if you all learned about the other 25 NPC sororities during your pledge period...?

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by AnchorAlumna

Earp may have met his match.

*cracks knuckles* I'm avoiding finishing a project for my appraisal/assessment class.

Originally Posted by Sin*ful

Greeks are not procastinators they are Philosphers......

Fair enough, btw we're talking Grecian Greeks here.

philosphy is their way of thinking that everything on this earth came after them.......

Greeks are a bit full of themselves, and are riding on their history for that.

I am greek and truthfully that is truth.........

Really, no really, I'm totally honestly without a doubt or a lie Greek. Really.

we believe that we are the first and last besides God..

Alpha and Omega, I suspect we have a Greek Orthodox here.

but that is our thinking and in the Latin somewhat the truth..

Not sure how Latin makes it true, possibly a religious thing I'm missing.

as you see Alpha Beta schools are in our names of the alphabet..

Yea for I have not a single thing here. Er... got nothin.

Greek LIfe is embeded in us from birth..but

Raised Greek, born into Greek culture

as we get older we attach the new with the old..i.e. church old fashion

...shy old

...attitude new..

Old Greeks are shy and go to church, young Greeks have attitude. Young Greeks are apparently stuck in the 90s.

darn that attitude gonna kills us women..

Us women have too much attitude

to much attitude causes our greek men now a days to say ohhhhhhhhhhhh hell noooooo..

And that attitude drives our men to go after non-Greek.

now girls go half way

Girls are only going to second base? Er?

..our men are beautiful and dont deserve half of what they get ..

Greek men are beautiful *coughLEONIDAScough* but think too highly of themselves and get too much attention for their beauty.

as much as you think you all that and a bag of chips hell there is one more beautiful WOMAN than you

Interesting note, Greeks have bags of chips and not bags of crisps like England does. I should circulate a poll. Also for every man there is a more beautiful woman.

and beauty is not all that now a days ..

Not that beauty counts for anything.

count on more.......your beauty will get you ONE month and no place else...........

Get it? JUST ONE. ONE DELICIOUS MONTH OF GREEK LOVING. *ahem* But no kissing on the mouth.

THATS GREEK LIFE

Word to your mother.

[nittanyalum]

Hmmm. First post and....that writing style...with the ellipses...as the only...punctuation....seems awfully....familiar...

Just me?

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by nittanyalum

Hmmm. First post and....that writing style...with the ellipses...as the only...punctuation....seems awfully....familiar...

Just me?

Yeah I forgot to point that out. Except that a) other poster's much worse at the philosophy b) this person thought this was Greece Greek and c) this poster had a much better grasp on reality.

[KAPital PHINUst]

I learned in several phases:

Pre-college: I was first exposed to Greek life back in 1985 when I was one of many middle school scholars sponsored by the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. At about the same time, I saw Revenge of the Nerds for the first time and between the Pi Delta Pis and the AKA, they obviously were different as night and day. I was an AKA scholar again in 1986 which was a repeat of the prior year--I still have the original certificate to this very day--and presented it to the membership when I spoke at their Founders Day earlier this year. But I digress.

My next exposure was in 1990 as a high school student visiting OSU and some of my now frat brothers put on a brief exhibition step show for us. Funny thing was, I didn't know them by name, I just remembered the canes being used.

My final pre-college exposure was in the spring of 1991 when I was invited to a Delta Sigma Theta Scholarship Reception where we had to write an essay on why we was best qualified to get a scholarship--and we were given only 24 hours to complete and hand deliver it to the scholarship coordinator's house. Quite an experience.

Oh, and the summer before I went off to college, I got a pamphlet mailed to me inviting me to rush one of the fraternitites from the campus' IFC. I promptly discarded the pamphlet; I had a very jaded view of Greeks--my attitude was that I wasn't about to be running around some frat house with bing cherries jammed in my butt trying to drop it in a martini glass or some mess like that.

College: My first exposure at college was seeing the Black Greeks stroll
at the Alpha Phi Alpha icebreaker at the local skating rink, which all I remember was that it took over an hour before they let anybody in the place, and that the bathrooms smelled like yesterday's piss.

But as the first semester pressed on, I found out that the Black Greeks had gotten a lot of clout, in that they sponsored a lot of black student oriented events, and they strolled at parties. Now anyone who knew me in college (and even now) knows that I LOVE a good party!!

So I decided to research Greek life, and I went to the source. Yup, Baird's manual and read it virtually cover to cover. And because this was pre-internet, I researched the old fashioned way--using books, magazine articles and newspaper articles. I have archived in my Alpha Phi Omega pledge book clippings and copies of numerous Greek oriented articles and commentaries from a variety of sources. My other book I hold in high regard as far as research was From Here To Fraternity by Robert Egan. Great book, lots of stuff I learned about (like one-handed boilermakers and how to megachug a beer).

Of course, I also learned about Greek life by talking and inquiring to others as well. Lotsa good discussions.

Then in 1995, I lost my internet virginity and began researching electronically. It changed my horizon of Greek (and other) research from wide screen to VistaVision. Even then though, the internet was still in its relative infancy (who remembers when sites were in gopher format)?

Then the Greek message board system came about with sites such as stepshow.com and meetgreeks.com and even the original version of this site: Greeksource.com. But in my 15 years of Greekdom, I have learned a lot and still learning more each and every day.

[TotallyWicked]

One of my h.s. teachers I remember being a Delta....and she let everyone know (Crimson and Creme suits every other day, Car with loads of DST insignia, the works!), she would show us clips of her org's step shows, them doing their call and whatnot.

I didn't pay much attention especially to the stepping since we had a step team at our school, I just thought they were college step teams. When I got into college I was exposed to Latino Greeks (which I didn't even know existed), a couple of my friends who are sisters of Gamma Phi Omega, introduced me to Greek Life more intensely...I did my research and found LUL

[AOII Angel]

Now don't laugh...my first exposure to sororities came with the Saturday Night Lives- Delta Delta Delta can I help ya, help ya, help ya? skits! I think back and wonder how mad this must have made the Tri Delts. When my sister went to school, my mom pushed her to go through rush, since she would be 180 miles from home without any of her friends. She told my sister that she had a roommate in college who was an AOII pledge. She would have loved to join AOII, but she didn't want to ask her parents for more money since money was tight. She also, incidentally, told us that our aunt was a ZTA (at the same school) which was a "Jewish sorority!" Yeah...I know, I have no idea what she was talking about, especially since this area of Louisiana has never had a very large Jewish population! ZTA had dissolved at NLU by the time we went. My sister went to school, loved AOII and Phi Mu and had a very hard time choosing between the two. When she became an AOII, it almost seemed like fate. I still think about getting my mom to join as an alumna.

[Scandia]

When I arrived at UF, got a newsletter about it, saw all the lovely Greek houses, and saw classmates wearing Greek letter t-shirts.

[FSUZeta]

i had many family members and family friends who were members of greek organizations as i was growing up. i also spent many happy fall saturdays growing up in tallahassee attending fl. state football games and we would drive by many of the greek houses on our way to the staduim. at the time most of the greek orgs. would paint signs in support of the teams(but that included their org. name)and hang them on the stadium fences. good times, good times.

[AlphaFrog]

I don't even remember how I first learned about Greek Life. My dad is a Phi Tau, and I just knew it was something I wanted to do when I went to college. I didn't rush my freshman year because I honestly didn't hear anything about rush, and I didn't know any Greeks. I really didn't even think I was the "type". In the spring, I heard about some COBs, and I went to a couple, but they weren't the group for me.