Why did you join?

[FuzzieAlum]

Greek life was not in my plan. I thought fraternities and sororities were for the generic popular kid who wants to be well-rounded and plays lots of sports and wears whatever everyone else does ... not for anybody who was really smart or who thought for themselves. I knew kids in the popular crowd at school but it wasn't something I wanted to be a part of (don't know if they would have had me, but they were mostly genuinely nice people). But my best friend, who was very different than me (she was a cheerleader, for starters), was very set on rush. We were goint to different colleges, though, but I learned a bit from her about Greek life. Meanwhile, I was busy figuring out where to apply, and a small/no Greek scene was one of my big factors.

So I got to college, and at my school rush was second semester. Even if it had been held first semester and I wanted to rush, my mom wouldn't have let me - she wanted to see how my grades went first. Then I met my RA, who was an AXD, and I thought (seriously!), "Wow, she doesn't have big hair! And she has glasses!" My ultra-girly friend down the hall and our neighbors inbetween were dead-set on rushing, so I went to the open houses in the fall with them, and I found the girls to be nice, at least, not necessarily like the stereotype. I was kind of a contrarian back then, so I thought about rushing just because no one back home would expect me to. A Greek gal in one of my classes encouraged me to rush, too.

So I went to rush, not even planning on necessarily joining, and I rejected one sorority right away as being everything I feared they were like. But there's something about the rush process that just sucks you in ... maybe it's 'cause I'm competitive and didn't want to be cut! And I was very, very impressed with my Rho Chi, who was a Greek intern at our campus - I actually knew her from a liberal campus political organization I was in. So I was figuring out that sorority chicks could be smart, and nice, and that some were "dumb fluffchicks" but others weren't. (Hey, I was judgmental back then, what can I say?) When it came down to the bid card I had three houses to choose from but only two I was really considering, and I realized then that not filling it out was no longer an option for me. I really loved the girls I had met and wanted to be part of what they were in.

Sorry, folks, that was long-winded of me.

Anyway, you still find kids from high school surprised I went Greek ... only about five kids from my class of 400 did.