Fraternity & sorority people, let's hear your voice!

In My Humble Opinion
1

Were you in, or are you in, a fraternity or sorority? If so, which one? Tell us at least one good story. Which means that I have to give one.

When I joined my fraternity, Lambda Chi Alpha, there were an equal number of frats. & sororities on campus. Then IFC decided to let more frats on campus. Now Greek Week was thrown all out of whack, along with the brother-sister match-up generally. At the end of each Greek Week, each brother-sister match-up put on a skit for Greek Sing, based on the theme of the year, that included acting plus generally a couple of song-and-dance numbers. The first year that this happened with two unmatched fraternities, they didn’t cooperate at all. Needless to say, their Greek Sing numbers were less than perfect. The following Greek Week, it was us, the Choppers, and the Crows, i.e. Alpha Chi Rho.

As luck would have it, a few chance meetings and an outstanding personality mix made the Choppers and the Crows great friends that year. I mean, really great friends. We even made up tee-shirts to play on the fact that we were a brother-brother match-up: “Who wears the pants?”

One of our adivsors had a double major in college, theatre and sociology, one of our prominent members was an opera trained singer, and we got one of the sports’ dance team members to choreograph our Greek Sing skit. I participated. It was all male. We even had a guy playing the only woman’s part. When we performed it, it was unbelievable. The student body was about 20,000, and about 10% was Greek, so we had a big crowd. We were on stage, I was in the 16 or 20 man dance group, and I remember we did this sort-of cheesy move with our head down and one arm up in the air, and about ten-thousand college women started screaming at the top of their lungs! It was a rush. Imagine ten-thousand women screaming for you.

We didn’t win overall, but we placed. Even the winning group said we were robbed. They said we lost on technicalities: not doing the paper work on time and stuff. The guy who played the woman? He won “best actress”! How cool is that? Regardless, we set the bar for brother-brother match-ups. That was a great year.

What’s your story. I really want to hear.

2

…hey, your fraternity is starting a chapter on our campus! [sub]Not that it matters, because I’m a chick…[/sub]

Anyways, I’m in Alpha Phi Omega. It’s a co-ed* service fraternity. Though, lately, I’ve been focusing more on things like getting out of the room to go to class, not eating myself into a stupor, and spending time with the SO.

*[sub]Try explaining to your friends back home that you’re rooming with three of your brothers.[/sub]

3

I pledged Theta Chi my freshman year with my best friend. We both went through Hell Night, but he never activated. I really had no reason to stay on except drink, because I didn’t know or have much in common with my other brothers. I was a “ghost.” I was already getting shunned by most of the frat, so I quit. I got shunned even more so.

This was on a small campus in the middle of nowhere, so this was a bigger deal than it would be on a city campus. I’d recommend the “pledge-and-quit” deal for everybody. It was quite an eye-opener.

4

Phi Beta Kappa and Gamma Delta Iota. Never felt the lack of belonging to a “real” fraternity.

5

I was and am a brother of Pi Kappa Phi fraternity. This surprises the heck out of most people I meet IRL, because I don’t meet the “fratboy” stereotype at all. My school was relatively small, with only five fraternities and three sororities. We were, in general, the “good citizen” fraternity- best average GPA, most philanthropy, most campus involvement, etc.
So, a story is demanded of me, eh? I’m afraid that’s going to have to wait until I’m not at work. Stay tuned, though.

6

I’m a proud brother of the Delta Phi chapter of Alpha Chi Rho (“crows”)…the dorkiest guys on campus…seriousy, just look for yourself -quite the motely crew. Even all of our girlfriends agree we are dorks. And if you say that dorky guys don’t get girlfriends, well, we got to RPI, with a 3-1 male-female ratio. Also, there is an all women’s college down the street.

I’m glad I joined, I get a lot out of it. In addition to gettig a place to live that is cheaper than campus, and nice, home-cooked meals, I get to live with most of the people I like to hang out with. I know a lot of people have bad sterotypes about fraternities, thanks in part to the media, but we are honestly very far from that. Sure, we drink, but we are such nerds. A fun conversation is us talking about our computer mods. Our favorite pastime is playing video games in our video game room. You know, upon writing this down, it seems even more pathetic.

7

I’m a Kappa Delta. I loved being in the sorority and am still very close with many of my sisters. It was especially nice because I don’t have any real sisters–just two older brothers–and I really liked having some women to bond with.

Ok, which story do you want to hear: The one where we had a topless pillow fight or the one where we donated teddy bears to sick kids?

8

Phi Kappa Sigma here. We have lots of geeks and techie types. But, we also partied the hardest on campus. Interesting dichotomy.

I would recommend the greek experiance to anyone in college. I still go on a trip every year with my pledge class, many of whom I hang out with much more often than that.

The group includes a:
Systems Analyst (me!)
Pharmacy Technician
Financial Advisor
Software Programmer
Chef
DJ for a nudie bar

It’s great that the fraternity encourages friendship among such a wide range of poeple. Most of us would probably not have met and bonded without it.

We started this trip on the 21st b-day of our youngest member of the pledge class. We made a vow during our freshmen year that we would all go out to Boston when he turned 21. He was one of those who comes to college at 17.

So, 4 years later we head off to Boston and have a blast bar hopping for the night. We then decided to make this an annual tradition. However, we cannot go to the same city twice. Once we scratch a city off our list, we don’t go back. This ensures that we always do something different, and eventually we will hopefully go to far away places just for a night of drinking.

Right after 9/11 we hit NYC, which I felt appropriate, helping out the economy and all that.

This year we went to Montreal, Canada. Good times had by all.

Next year I am thinking maybe Rekyavik (SP?) Iceland!

9

Another brother of Pi Kappa Phi here. I’m sorry, but my memories of my fraternity life are really pretty limited - sort of like the saying that if you remember the 60s you didn’t really live through them. It is all a very smokey, drunken, brawling, raucous haze.

10

I belonged to Sigma Nu. Joining was definitely a good move on my part. I just went to a brother’s fortieth birthday party. We hung out while all our kids played together. Not really what you think about when you join a fraternity. Funny how most people labeled with the perjorative “frat boy” have nothing to do with Greek affilliation.

11

Alpha Delta Pi sorority sister here. I was a founding sister of our chapter, at a Big Ten in the east.

I’m not you typical sorority chick - I rushed as a freshman in a colonization rush becuase it was a week from the first rush parties to bid night. Normal rush took over a month - no way was I doing that.

All in all, it was an OK experience - it was a good way to meet people at a school of over 40,000 students, and that was the main campus. Basically, it was a good way to party - apartment and dorm parties were constantly busted, and there was NO WAY you could get into the bars underage - was not worth it to have bouncers call the cops on you.

I had a lot of fun - I still keep in touch with a few of my sisters.

12

Another Phi Kappa Sigma member here… same chapter as Debaser.

In the fall of 1990, I helped to found this chapter to allow a group of men to experience all the things that Debaser said. This environment was not available through the existing chapters on campus, and all in all, we’ve grown to a place of leadership on the campus.

The greek experience certainly isn’t for everyone, nor is every chapter right for every person, but for those who chose to experience it, and work hard to accomplish the goals that are in the best interest of the chapter, the rewards are far in excess of the errors.

I’ve recieved 3 jobs through my brothers, in addition to having what are now many life long friends. I’ve been out of school for 8 years now, but to this day, the greater number of my friends are the folks I’ve met through the fraternity.

As a 32 year old man, I don’t have a lot of money to give to our chapter, so I support them with my time. I’m the chapter advisor now, and as difficult as it can be to seperate the role of advisor and brother, it’s been very rewarding to this point.

I could tell stories here, but some of them may harm my chances for future endeavours (I plead the 5th).

-Butler

13

Phi Delta Theta. Most of the bonfires in our front yard were fueled by cafeteria furniture.

14

Alpha Gamma Delta. What’s to say? I was pretty enough to get in, wasn’t prissy enough to make friends. Plus, I dated more Alpha Chi Rhos than Pi Kappa Alphas.

:waves at the crows above:

Eventually I deactivated. It was silly to pay the dues for the right to wear a sweatshirt, which was pretty much all I was getting out of it.

They were nice girls overall, but I can’t say I gleaned anything positive or negative from the experience. I know a lot of people made lifelong friends in the system, but for me…not so much.

I don’t even have a sweatshirt anymore. Dammit.

15

I pledged to a co-ed criminal justice fraternity calledhttp://www2.criminology.fsu.edu/~LAE/"]Lambda Alpha Epsilon (officially abbreviated as ACJA-LAE), and I’d have to say that we’re an interesting group of people. Most of us are pretty normal, with the exception of me and a few others, and our chapter is more girls than guys, but that’s fine by me. I’ve learned a lot about different careers in the criminal justice system by being a member… we invite at least 3 guest lecturers per semester to speak to our chapter. On Saturday I’m going to go learn to shoot a gun so I can do pistol team next fall when we go to Regional competition. Yay!

16

:smack: arrgh… lemme try that again. Lambda Alpha Epsilon, Lambda Chapter.

17

Rah rah for Kappa Kappa Gamma!
Three cheers for the girls who wear the blue and blue.
And you can trust me when I say I am a,
Kappa girl from KKG.

18

I think my sister-in-law was a KKG. She said that they used to sing, sarcastically, “Light blue…Dark blue…Colors of a Kotex Box!”:smiley:

19

Brother! We had a similar fuel source. The junk room had 20 years worth of flammables.

Y.i.t.B.,
Mitchell Albert
#2291 Florida Alpha
University of Florida
Incidentally, I find your bodily function stories extraordinary.

20

Yeah, us too. To be sung to the tune of Camptown Races:

Kappa is the colors of a Kotex box,
Light blue, dark blue…