When I was in college I had a minor distaste for them. Now in my 50’s, I really don’t care.
I went to a largely commuter school with a higher average matriculation age than most - frats were relatively unobtrusive and were mostly regarded with mild contempt as drinking clubs for meat-headed bros. But they weren’t visible or elitist enough to be hated. However the more prestigious frats in a nearby more prestigious university mostly had that negative media reputation from multiple public debacles (hazing incidents, drunken party incidents, public sexual harassment incidents) that sorta reinforced the mild contempt image in my own school,
I did not join one but a friend of mine did, and I got some exposure to that “lifestyle”. It was not for me, but he enjoyed himself for a couple-three years and says the network was useful right after finishing school, but then became less important than his career network as time went on.
I would say fraternities are a general negative to young people - it’s modest and overstated networking and charitable activities are more than compensated for by the damage it does thru the rapey, druggy, exclusive, drunken, slacker party culture. If a college kid wants to donate time and effort for the betterment of his community or mankind, there are plenty of other non-frat ways to achieve that, without all the baggage. But, each to his own.
This is my take on them. Having talked to youngsters in the family, and their mates, who were involved in the system, left me with the impression that the charitable activities were deeply DEEPLY token, at best.
My son was in a frat for engineering and science majors. I thought there were some benefits to that - everyone understood the need to study, but then there were social opportunities.
When I was in college, unless they were currently booking my band I found them totally useless.
Later in life I had a singer that had been in a frat in college that he had enjoyed, and he tried to convince me that they were better than I thought. Nothing he said about them convinced me that my original assessment was incorrect.
I have to say I was never super gung-ho about them, but fraternities were so ingrained into the fabric of my college that you almost felt kind of weird if you weren’t in one.
There were certain advantages. You’re living with 30 of (mostly) your friends in a big Animal House style mansion with a pretty large budget for parties and other social activities. It’s a lot of fun.
The downside is there can be a lot of drinking, drugs, womanizing, and other toxic male behaviors. Also they are inherently elitist organizations.
Also, one thing I didn’t like about my college was how much pressure there was to “rush” freshman year. It’s like you are starting at this new school where you are meeting new people and trying to figure out who you want to be and whatnot. So while you are making new friends organically, you are supposed to toss your name into the Sorting Hat and hope you land in the right faction like some crappy dystopian YA novel and deal with all that bullshit.
There’s a huge cultural difference difference between fraternities and sororities roughly based around their umbrella organizations. Your “traditional white” (mostly NPC) frats, I never really thought about at all. My impression of them generally is similar to the opinions voiced here. Def was not my scene in college. NPHC fraternities on the other hand (Black Greek letter organizations) I’ve always held a mostly positive opinion of, although I never personally felt the need to join. They have had to deal with similar issues of hazing and party culture.
I was in a frat that I joined after my 1st year in an attempt to have a wider social group, and it was effective for me. My frat was one of two traditionally Jewish frats on campus and I was a legacy since my father was a member at a different university 35 odd years earlier. By the time I joined, it was probably about 60% Jewish.
As frats go, it was one of the more scaled back frats and didn’t have either an Animal House vibe. There was explicitly NO hazing - it was grounds for immediate termination of the member and possibly the chapter. We did play some drinking games as university students do, but as a non-drinker I was in no way pushed to drink.
Did it “turn me into the man I am today”, no, but it was enjoyable and I’m still close friends with one of my frat brothers. My frat no longer operates in Canada, although there is still some Greek involvement at the university as far as I understand.
I’m indifferent to them. I went to college almost 30 years ago. I did participate in one day of rush activities because, hey, I wanted to see what this whole thing was about, but it wasn’t anything that particularly interested me. The only one that I maybe had some interest is Phi Mu Alpha, the music fraternity. They all seemed pretty normal and chill folks.
My observation of frats and sororities is they all had their degrees of cliquishness and individual reputations. Most friends that I had that were in fraternities seemed to be in Kappa Sig, for some reason. They seemed a reasonable bunch of guys – helped each other study and kept their grades up (they had some sort of minimum GPA), liked to party, weren’t too exclusive, but definitely a little bit of “bro” culture, too.
I understand it mostly as another way to network while in college. Not for me, but I can see it being appealing to some and I don’t necessarily think they are de facto bad institutions.
My nephew was a member of Phi Mu Alpha at Valparaiso University (a small liberal-arts university in northwestern Indiana). He’s not a party guy in the slightest, but it was, for him, an excellent experience – he’s not good, at all, at being outgoing or social, and the fraternity gave him a group to hang out with, study with, etc. He lived in their chapter house for several years, and most of his good friends from his college years were also his fraternity brothers.
My impression when I was in college was that there were serious students and frat members with no overlap. I personally could not have joined since I was only a part-time student, working full time and commuting. But I would not have joined in any case.
I was in college during the “Death to Preppies” heyday of the early 80s and hated them like any other undeserving elite. I now live in a college town and the frats and sororities are the most inoffensive thing about it.
This is close to my experience, but not close enough that I doubt we attended the same university. Oh, and I’m twenty years older than you.
ETA: I remember a high school teacher telling us that his wife was rushed for her sorority. She was told to drape her coat/jacket a certain way on the chair during her interview so the interviewers could read the label. That turned me off completely.
My general impression (possibly completely wrong) is that frats are somewhat less obnoxious at small colleges compared to large ones. Sorta the way EVERYONE at a small college is less anonymous/invisible and potentially more accountable. My impression is that at some small colleges Greek houses were largely just another place to live.
My cliques in college were fellow engineering students, Deadheads and the campus radio station. Not too many Greeks in those groups. I thought that the whole thing was lame.
