Proud To Be A Sorority Girl

I’m often told that I don’t look like someone who would be in a sorority. This could be because I still listen to Mayday Parade and other emo bands from 7th grade.  It could be because I don’t always want to go out every day of the weekend.  Maybe it’s because I usually look like I just rolled out of bed. Whatever it is – I don’t fit the general sorority stereotype.

To be honest, I don’t know a lot of girls who do. I guess the stereotype would include pretty and skinny blondes who care a lot about their looks.  Their parents pay for everything so they have a stuck up attitude and are often called bitches.  They drink all the time and only care about partying. They only date the stereotypical frat guys who look like they skip leg day at the gym and have a keg of beer chilling in their stomach.

But a stereotype is exactly that – “a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.”

My sorority was definitely not one where we were all cookie cutter versions of each other.  Each sister brought her own unique look, sense of thinking, values, and hobbies. My sisters all taught me different things that I would have never learned if I hadn’t joined a sorority.

I learned how to be a leader when necessary and a follower when necessary by holding positions and working underneath Vice Presidents of those positions. My sisters taught me friendship, loyalty, love, passion, and responsibility.  They taught me about different religions, fields of study, cultures, philanthropies, and ways of growing up. Joining a sorority opened my life up to a whole new set of people I might not have ever met otherwise.

We often get told that we “pay for our friends.”  In reality, we pay for awesome t-shirts, mixers, date parties, formals, donating to charities, and a slight bit to our headquarters.  Even if I was paying for my friends, I feel like I should owe another million dollars.  My sorority sisters are the best part of me and I wouldn’t trade them, the two and half years as an active sister, or living in the designated chapter house for anything in the world.

It doesn’t have to be for everybody, I have plenty of friends who weren’t in Greek Life and still enjoyed college. And yes, you can still have friends outside of Greek Life. But give recruitment a shot, give these girls the chance to make you fall in love with them, their traditions, and their sisterhood. In the end, I found myself as an alumni of a life changing organization and that is something I will always cherish.