Question on Rushing in my 30s (Fraternity)

[nate2512]

Originally Posted by DSTCHAOS

But your posts were nothing but an attempt to argue.

Taking things out of context.

[Senusret I]

Originally Posted by nate2512

cause you know everything, and you're never wrong.

I am thankful we've reached some common ground here.

[DSTCHAOS]

Originally Posted by nate2512

Taking things out of context.

Nah, you jumped in the ring with your boxing gloves on.

[nate2512]

Originally Posted by DSTCHAOS

Nah, you jumped in the ring with your boxing gloves on.

I'm straight fists, no need for boxing gloves, I'm hardcore.

[DSTCHAOS]

Originally Posted by nate2512

I'm straight fists, no need for boxing gloves, I'm hardcore.

Nah, boxing gloves.

[nate2512]

Originally Posted by DSTCHAOS

Nah, boxing gloves.

Fine.

[srmom]

Kato,

I appreciate your situation and wish you well. I admire your service to our country (THANK YOU!) and am glad that you have come back with such a positive attitude.

As a wife and mother, I have to say that I would have a problem with my husband pledging a fraternity. The time commitment is immense if you truly are planning on doing all that the other pledges are doing. Add to that the commitment you are making to do well in school, and I just don't see how a person could possibly give all that is needed to meet each of the commitment's needs - your marriage being foremost.

Your wife must be a saint, either that, or she doesn't know quite what your looking at getting into.

JMO - I truly do wish you luck

[nittanyalum]

Originally Posted by srmom

Your wife must be a saint, either that, or she doesn't know quite what your looking at getting into.

I must admit, my first thought too was, what is his wife thinking? From your posts, you "sound" like a good guy and like someone who may very well have a great fraternity rush, 30s or not. But I would be concerned about your relationships at home when you get hip-deep in. I mean, mixers with 19 and 20-year-old sorority women (many of whom will likely have imbibed heavily)? Trust is the foundation of any good marriage, but sheesh, I think that would test anybody's limits.

So on the one hand, I wish you well and think you would get some great things out of joining a fraternity to enhance your college experience, but as a married woman, I'd caution you to be very VERY sensitive to your wife and if concerns or insecurities pop up for her when you get into it.

[dekeguy]

Kato,
Since we are already "Brothers of the Sword" (I am a reservist with four years AD and one tour in-country as a CAV Troop CO) I know that your experiences have made you a first class prospective. You understand brotherhood as few others can. As a combat veteran you have already learned the important bits. You apparently have a great deal to offer to any Fraternity. I urge you to go for it. If you find a house that you feel at home with and if they want you this would be a mutually beneficial experience. You will need to include your wife as much as possible so that she can share your enthusiasm and gain an understanding of the whole concept. As she is supportive she will also get a lot out of your experience.
Check out all the chapters at your school and see which ones seem to be a good fit. Rush can be a blast and pledgeship is something you have already demonstrated you can handle. It is demanding but it can be fun. Nothing to lose and maybe a lot to gain.
Good luck.
dekeguy
CPT, USAR

[EE-BO]

Originally Posted by srmom

As a wife and mother, I have to say that I would have a problem with my husband pledging a fraternity. The time commitment is immense if you truly are planning on doing all that the other pledges are doing. Add to that the commitment you are making to do well in school, and I just don't see how a person could possibly give all that is needed to meet each of the commitment's needs - your marriage being foremost.

Your wife must be a saint, either that, or she doesn't know quite what your looking at getting into.

I am neither a wife nor a mother, but I agree srmom and thanks for stating it so well.

Kato, as others have said- coming later than usual to fraternity life is far more acceptable for servicemen than it would be for most people. So from that standpoint while you might encounter roadblocks at certain chapters, you should still have choices.

The question I think for you is how this would fit into your overall life plan. A chapter does not have to engage in illegal hazing activities to make pledgeship a very demanding time committment.

Chapters vary (and I am making the logical assumption you are talking about a social fraternity- forget the nonsense from 3 pages back in this thread), but you should be prepared to spend at least one evening away from home every week- and many weeks that would be 2-3 evenings.

You would likely get some accomodation from the chapter for your unique situation seeing as how you are married, but even if that is allowed- the less time you spend with your fellow pledges, the less of a real connection you will have with your pledge brothers and with the fraternity itself.

So often on this forum, and elsewhere, the ultimate goal being discussed is getting a bid. That is an important step, but it is only the beginning. All chapters have people who pledged and got initiated, but never really became a part of their chapter or had a meaningful experience. Most often that is because someone was marginal to begin with or somehow changed during pledgeship and ended up just not fitting in. But in your case I think there is an extra risk of that since your life experience has already moved beyond what a social fraternity provides for many people.

Now you might well dive in and have a blast- but I just say these things to get you to really consider and question what role you think you would have in a fraternity over the next few years while you are in school, and to encourage you to think about how the benefits of that might be offset by strains in other areas of your life. Consider, for a start, how awkward it might be for your wife to join you at parties. Note I say "might"- you two may have a blast on the Greek social scene. But think about it all the same. The whole idea of being in a fraternity is that is a central part of your social life. Are you prepared for that? If not, is the money and time you invest worth getting the lesser return compared to most other guys in fraternities? Again, it may well be worth it- but just give it thought.

When I started my MBA program, the Dean gave a speech to the entering class addressing the life issues many students would face since virtually all of them had left school, gone to work and were now coming back for their MBA in their mid to late 20s- or later. And so of course many of them were married. I was one of the few people in that room who came right through from undergrad. For most, entering the MBA program was a huge change in their life pattern and in their finances.

The Dean made a point of telling students to think about this because it was his experience that in the past students had experienced a lot of strain with their spouses and families over going back to school- sometimes ending in divorce.

This change you are making in your life has the potential to test you in many ways, and I just you urge to think carefully about whether adding a fraternity to the mix would be worth what it might cost. It could very well work out great, but it is worth pondering carefully in terms of how your life situation is different from that of the typical undergraduate going through rush.

PS- If you decide this is the right thing for you, I wish you well. How you present yourself on this forum suggests you have noble motives and would make a great addition to a good chapter somewhere.

[jon1856]

Originally Posted by EE-BO

I am neither a wife nor a mother, but I agree srmom and thanks for stating it so well.

Kato, as others have said- coming later than usual to fraternity life is far more acceptable for servicemen than it would be for most people. So from that standpoint while you might encounter roadblocks at certain chapters, you should still have choices.

The question I think for you is how this would fit into your overall life plan. A chapter does not have to engage in illegal hazing activities to make pledgeship a very demanding time commitment.

Chapters vary (and I am making the logical assumption you are talking about a social fraternity- forget the nonsense from 3 pages back in this thread), but you should be prepared to spend at least one evening away from home every week- and many weeks that would be 2-3 evenings.

You would likely get some accommodation from the chapter for your unique situation seeing as how you are married, but even if that is allowed- the less time you spend with your fellow pledges, the less of a real connection you will have with your pledge brothers and with the fraternity itself.

So often on this forum, and elsewhere, the ultimate goal being discussed is getting a bid. That is an important step, but it is only the beginning. All chapters have people who pledged and got initiated, but never really became a part of their chapter or had a meaningful experience. Most often that is because someone was marginal to begin with or somehow changed during pledgeship and ended up just not fitting in. But in your case I think there is an extra risk of that since your life experience has already moved beyond what a social fraternity provides for many people.

Now you might well dive in and have a blast- but I just say these things to get you to really consider and question what role you think you would have in a fraternity over the next few years while you are in school, and to encourage you to think about how the benefits of that might be offset by strains in other areas of your life. Consider, for a start, how awkward it might be for your wife to join you at parties. Note I say "might"- you two may have a blast on the Greek social scene. But think about it all the same. The whole idea of being in a fraternity is that is a central part of your social life. Are you prepared for that? If not, is the money and time you invest worth getting the lesser return compared to most other guys in fraternities? Again, it may well be worth it- but just give it thought.

When I started my MBA program, the Dean gave a speech to the entering class addressing the life issues many students would face since virtually all of them had left school, gone to work and were now coming back for their MBA in their mid to late 20s- or later. And so of course many of them were married. I was one of the few people in that room who came right through from undergrad. For most, entering the MBA program was a huge change in their life pattern and in their finances.

The Dean made a point of telling students to think about this because it was his experience that in the past students had experienced a lot of strain with their spouses and families over going back to school- sometimes ending in divorce.

This change you are making in your life has the potential to test you in many ways, and I just you urge to think carefully about whether adding a fraternity to the mix would be worth what it might cost. It could very well work out great, but it is worth pondering carefully in terms of how your life situation is different from that of the typical undergraduate going through rush.

PS- If you decide this is the right thing for you, I wish you well. How you present yourself on this forum suggests you have noble motives and would make a great addition to a good chapter somewhere.

Very well said and written.

[Kedzman]

Kato,

Time for me to finally jump in... I'd strongly encourage you to look into the Sigma Nu chapter at UW. Sigma Nu was founded at Virginia Military Institute as a protest movement to hazing in 1866 just after the Civil War by three combat veterans. Like you, they were non-traditional students seeking a degree - in their case, engineering, so they could help rebuild the South which had been devastated by the war. As combat veterans, they had little interest in hazing which they considered kid stuff.

They started what was known as "The Legion of Honor". This protest movement to hazing became so popular at VMI that they put Greek letters to their brotherhood and called is Sigma Nu.

Sigma Nu is one of the largest, oldest and most prolific fraternities in existence. They have an impressive list of famous alumni. With over 180 active chapters and over 175,000 living alumni, it is a powerful organization.

One of the most respected attributes of Sigma Nu is their LEAD program (Leadership, Ethics, Achievement, Development). Sigma Nu is the only fraternity that offers a 4-year ethical leadership development curriculum to its members. LEAD sessions are mostly led by alumni or university administrators. Sessions cover basic leadership topics in phase I and progress into more substantial topics (effective change, controversy with civility, group process & decision-making, organizational development, servant leadership and more...) Check out the LEAD page on our national website http://www.sigmanu.org/programs/lead/index.php

I think you would be a great LEAD Chairman at a Sigma Nu chapter. I am a 39-year old alumnus who is on the Alumni Advisory Board of my chapter. I am the alumni LEAD Chairman and work directly with the chapter LEAD chair coordinating all of the LEAD sessions. Mostly, I bird-dog quality speakers from within our alumni group or influential university administrators. We had a county judge alumnus of ours facilitate the Ethics session - that was a great fit. This would be a great way for you to tap into the alumni network of the local chapter, which could serve you well in the marketplace one day.

Sigma Nu at UW has been there since 1895 and has a rich tradition. They have a beautiful chapter house. I cannot speak for the quality of the men, however, since I've never met them.

Bottom line... Military herritage, no hazing, LEAD program, highly-recognizable & respected national organization. Go Snakes!

[LadyLonghorn]

Thank you for your service to our country. I'm sorry it didn't allow for you to have a traditional college experience.

But I have to say, that from a sorority girl's perspective, the only thing that comes to my mind when I think about a guy who is 34 hanging out with a pledge class of guys half his age is this:

[Kato]

Originally Posted by EE-BO

I am neither a wife nor a mother, but I agree srmom and thanks for stating it so well.

Kato, as others have said- coming later than usual to fraternity life is far more acceptable for servicemen than it would be for most people. So from that standpoint while you might encounter roadblocks at certain chapters, you should still have choices.

The question I think for you is how this would fit into your overall life plan. A chapter does not have to engage in illegal hazing activities to make pledgeship a very demanding time committment.
...

Totally reasonable concern, and one that I have as well. Which is why questions about just what would be expected of me would be formost amongst any asked of a prospective chapter.

There is definately a line at which I'd have to agree "too much time would be too much time". What that is precisely, I am not sure. It would probably have to mean that a Greek experience provided less time for me to spend with my family than I had in the Army. My wife and I are used to me leaving for work at 5:30 AM and returning at 6-7 PM 5 days a week. We're used to me having to go "into the field" for training on a Thursday afternoon and returning at midnight that Sunday. Leaving for a month at a time to training center around the country. Etc etc.

I'm not overly concerned about the time committment. Staying over for a night a week or something similar would be par for the course in our normal experience. I completely understand the rationality in the comments about time investments, however, and absolutely for someone used to normal routines and with spouses that have more conventional expectations on what is "normal", it would probably be too much.

Originally Posted by Kedzman

Kato,

Time for me to finally jump in... I'd strongly encourage you to look into the Sigma Nu chapter at UW. Sigma Nu was founded at Virginia Military Institute as a protest movement to hazing in 1866 just after the Civil War by three combat veterans. Like you, they were non-traditional students seeking a degree - in their case, engineering, so they could help rebuild the South which had been devastated by the war. As combat veterans, they had little interest in hazing which they considered kid stuff.
...

Thanks very much for this information. I will absolutely get in touch with Sigma Nu to introduce myself and ask a few questions.

Originally Posted by LadyLonghorn

Thank you for your service to our country. I'm sorry it didn't allow for you to have a traditional college experience.

But I have to say, that from a sorority girl's perspective, the only thing that comes to my mind when I think about a guy who is 34 hanging out with a pledge class of guys half his age is this:

Well... I can't really help that. Everyone has labels attached to them that aren't accurate or true. I've had worse than "lecher" just serving my country. I would gladly take the Dazed&Confused example over "uneducated simpleton", "man whore" or very occasionally "murderer" which I had to unfairly wear over the past few years simply due to my occupation.

Besides, if some sorority girl takes the time to label me, she's obviously paying a little too much attention to a married man. And probably got shot down.

[Kato]

To prevent any misunderstandings with local sororities, I will be fully prepared to come to school every day with a special flag. This flag would hopefully be disarming and reassuring to everyone that sees it.



Nobody feels the least bit put off right? See how well it works???!!!

Originally Posted by LadyLonghorn

I'm sorry it didn't allow for you to have a traditional college experience.

But back to seriousness, from my perspective the "traditional college experience" can be broken up into many component pieces. Really there are only two that I can't get back: I'm not 19-22, and I'm not single. That leaves an awful lot of possible experiences waiting to be had, that constitute the "traditional college experience".

Will some people be unwilling to break out of their high school +/- 4 year "peer group" world view? Sure. And that's fine, I'm not out to force myself on any group. I wouldn't get anything out of associating with them anyway, and they would likely get nothing out of associating with me. But obviously from some of the responses in this thread there are people that "get" that brotherhood is commonality, not age. And I'll go out on a limb and say that given my background I "get" brotherhood.

So, there it is. Long and short.