Quote:
Originally Posted by amanda6035
I understand that they may be older - but the article talks trash about fraternities and sororities.... when it's essentially the same thing. Of course, this is the only school with these clubs (that I'm aware of, correct me if I'm wrong), they are essentially like a local organization, so the benefit of an alumni association wherever you go is not always there, and some people have never even heard of them. I know I sure hadn't not until it was posted on this thread yesterday.
There are benefits to being greek, and I just think it's really snooty of the article to bash greek life, when, as someone else already said, it's very similar. Seriously whats the difference? other than being co-ed....
|
Some other schools have something like them -- Harvard's finals clubs, for example. It's an Ivy League, Ivy-like sort of thing.
I see what you're saying, but I think it shows some lack of understanding about these schools. Sure they are like local organizations, so there isn't the benefit of a national alumni association.
But this is Princeton we're talking about -- we're talking about a school ethos that doesn't really
want national organizations or care about what anyone else has. Nothing beats the Princeton connection, in that view. (If you need confirmation of that, ask any Princeton grad.
) Why have Greek networking-ability when you'll have the Princeton network? Why go for the experience you can have at any (good) State University when you can have the experience unique to Princeton? It's just another way of setting Princeton up as different and, in the view of many Princetonians, better, more like the "gold standards" of Oxford and Cambridge.
In other words, the difference is that these are
Princeton clubs (in the most gentlemanly sense of the word), not organizations that you and a student at East Podunk can both join. So everyone hasn't heard of them -- the people that matter have.
I completely agree with your view of the value of Greek orgs in general and national Greek orgs in particular. And I hate to see any school shut out Greek life of any kind. But I can also respect the other institutions that may be deeply woven into a schools life without calling it a "fraternity that's 'not' a fraternity."
ETA: This post may not come across quite as tounge-in-check as I intended. In my more serious moments, I can say that the eating clubs are venerable institutions with colorful histories, and that it is a mistake to infer that they are simply fraternity-wannabes without the Greek letters.
In my less serious moments, I am bemused that anyone would be in the least bit surprised to see this "we're different from everyone else and our own institutions are more than sufficient, if not better" attitude coming from Princeton. That's just seems like being surprised at seeing a peacock preen.
Hybrid Mode
