Fraternities/Sororities

[Jared Lash]

My sister dated the president of a particular fraternity at the school she was at. He was a great guy and strongly encouraged me to rush my local chapter that fall. I told him it wasn't my thing and he gave me the "you just don't know" speech. Then he had an opportunity to work with said chapter. He told me not to bother.

Yeah, it's funny. I had a couple former students and one cousin ask me if they should rush "my" fraternity. I told them I had no idea what the fraternity was like at any other school than my own. And at the time I visited my old house for football games/BBQs so I could at least vouch for my own chapter having good guys but these days I can't even say that.

I know there's this idea of fostering a nationwide "brotherhood" but nobody joins a fraternity (or at least no one should) because of the letters out front or because their handshake, pledge or whatever. When we had regional meetings a lot of the guys were cool, some chapters had some cool guys and some jerks and some were full of people I didn't even want to be around. I remember the chapter of my fraternity at UC Santa Barbara at that time seeming having nothing but douchebags for members.

When it comes down to it any given (social) fraternity is just the sum of its members at that time and any decision to join should just be based on whether they are people you want to be friends with.

 

[BioDriver]

I'm a Kappa Sigma alum and worked as the alumni relations chair for a year. Having to type up a monthly newsletter, update addresses and contact information, manage donations, and organize alumni events while keeping my grades during two 16-hour semesters really forces you to learn time management.

Living in house was a lot fun and no more expensive than living in an apartment. Sure, there were times when I'd hate living in a frat house, but for the most part it was a great experience. A lot of my best friends are my fraternity brothers and I don't think I would have met them or had the college experience I did without joining a frat.

 

[NJL]

it's not really a frat, but i just got elected today as Secretary for our school's Info Sec member group..

 

[Eric Perry]

Not so much a frat, per se, but I was Chi Sigma Iota.

 

[6jase5]

Jared Lash - When it comes down to it any given (social) fraternity is just the sum of its members at that time and any decision to join should just be based on whether they are people you want to be friends with.

Well said. I fully agree. I went to visit a few other sigma chi chapters around the country and I was both pleasantly surprised and overly disappointed with the receptions that I got.

Regarding hazing, I used to make pledges go talk to attractive female friends of mine before knowing that we were friends. It gave a lot of them confidence to go talk to someone that they would have never approached as they were more concerned with disappointing the fraternity by not doing it. Either way, I always taught pledges to respect women and we never hazed by beating, forced drinking, etc. We had fun every day and any hazing done by me usually involved a remotely uncomfortable encounter with an attractive female, oh darn.

 

[Marlat]

Chai Mocca Frappe for me thanks.

 

[mike_v_s]

Regarding hazing, I used to make pledges go talk to attractive female friends of mine before knowing that we were friends. It gave a lot of them confidence to go talk to someone that they would have never approached as they were more concerned with disappointing the fraternity by not doing it. Either way, I always taught pledges to respect women and we never hazed by beating, forced drinking, etc. We had fun every day and any hazing done by me usually involved a remotely uncomfortable encounter with an attractive female, oh darn.

Not so bad, possibly even constructive. Last year, 10 members of a fraternity were arrested after a few pledges admitted themselves to a hospital with 2nd and 3rd degree burns from having hot water and crab boil poured on their genitals.

Mike

 

[Jared Lash]

Not so bad, possibly even constructive. Last year, 10 members of a fraternity were arrested after a few pledges admitted themselves to a hospital with 2nd and 3rd degree burns from having hot water and crab boil poured on their genitals.

Mike

Damn.

The problem with hazing is that it's pretty much always an escalating thing. The guys that get hazed decide that the next group will get it worse than they did and so on. But scalded nuts?

 

[mike_v_s]

Damn.

The problem with hazing is that it's pretty much always an escalating thing. The guys that get hazed decide that the next group will get it worse than they did and so on. But scalded nuts?

I don't mean to imply that this is normal. Just comparing/contrasting hazing methods.

"Crab boil" is the seasoning packet that gets dumped into the water when boiling seafood in large quantities. If concentrated enough, it'll burn skin on its own. I usually leave a good crawfish boil with my finger tips buring. I can't imagine having it applied anywhere else.

For comparison's sake, my friends that joined fraternities usually suffered embarrasing situations with little clothing on. While asking strangers for a quarter to call your brothers to come pick you up while wearing your boxers might not be fully legal (laws vary state-to-state), it certainly isn't physically harmful.

Mike

 

[Jared Lash]

I don't mean to imply that this is normal. Just comparing/contrasting hazing methods.

"Crab boil" is the seasoning packet that gets dumped into the water when boiling seafood in large quantities. If concentrated enough, it'll burn skin on its own. I usually leave a good crawfish boil with my finger tips buring. I can't imagine having it applied anywhere else.

For comparison's sake, my friends that joined fraternities usually suffered embarrasing situations with little clothing on. While asking strangers for a quarter to call your brothers to come pick you up while wearing your boxers might not be fully legal (laws vary state-to-state), it certainly isn't physically harmful.

Mike

We did goofy stuff. There was a "photoquest" (a scavenger hunt with pictures) that we had to complete with some weird items on it. We learned later that it was a way to keep us occupied while they practiced for initiation but it had things on it like "mooning the Golden Gate Bridge" and so on.but nothing really humiliating or physically harmful just fun.

Side story: On our photoquest, one of the items was that we had to get a picture of one of us hugging a female cop and one hugging a prostitute. I volunteered to hug the cop and once I told her what it was for she was very cool. The prostitute was another story.

We went downtown and found the right area and then parked and killed the lights. Gene, who volunteered to do it hops out and walks across the street to talk to one of the women. As they're talking she's running her hands over his chest etc and I take a picture with no flash. We realize it won't come out at all and so I try to take another one with the flash on. When it goes off, the girl flips out and starts screaming at Gene. He comes running back to the car and we drive off.

In the car he won't stop talking about how she was telling him how hot she thought he was and how she wouldn't even charge him blah, blah, blah when he finally blurts out, "WHERE'S MY WALLET?!?". Sure enough, his wallet is gone. He made us drive back and look for her but she was gone and eventually we give up and leave.

The greatest part is that when we got the pictures developed, my second one (with the flash) clearly shows her picking his pocket.

 

[Joe Gress]

The greatest part is that when we got the pictures developed, my second one (with the flash) clearly shows her picking his pocket.

Talk about insult to injury.

 

[mike_v_s]

We did goofy stuff. There was a "photoquest" (a scavenger hunt with pictures) that we had to complete with some weird items on it. We learned later that it was a way to keep us occupied while they practiced for initiation but it had things on it like "mooning the Golden Gate Bridge" and so on.but nothing really humiliating or physically harmful just fun.

My friends had the scaveger thunt, too. Some were photos (I remember the cop thing with them), others were actual manhole covers from particular streets. I'm not sure if this is standard fare, but certain streets had manhole covers with the street name on them. The ones required were from the busy ones. Most of it was harmless fun.

Mike

 

[SteveC]

All I know is we pretty much have a standing gig with a Frat/Sorority to play the cocktail hour for their formal. 60 minute gig, good pay, we can graze at the appetiser table when they go to dinner and the girls are usually quite attractive and trying to outdo each other so that's always fun.

 

[LSquared]

Interesting discussion.

Back in my college days (late 70's, early 80's) I looked into a couple of fraternities, but it just didn't "click" for me. On the other hand, most of the girls I dated (and the one I married) were in soroities.... hmmmmmm.

Flash forward 30 years, and my younger daughter is in the process of pledging Sigma Alpha Iota. As has been noted here, this (and Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia) are music fraternities... I'm happy she's doing it, as it will keep her involved in music. She went to school as a music major, but change after a year.


Meanwhile, as also mentioned previously: When I'm hiring somebody, I don't much care if a candidate was in a Greek organization (or any other group), unless they were in a leadership role, or if they did things through the group that have direct bearing on their qualifications to do the job for which I'm hiring.

 

[cheezewiz]

I didn't join a frat when I was in college. I made friends with people, hung out with them, drank, met girls, etc, all without living in a pit that smells like stale beer and sweat, packed 5 guys to a room.

And sorry, a high GPA looks good on a resume, a good school looks good on a resume, a prestigious job or internship looks good on a resume; A frat, does not.

I don't often agree with TrooperFarva. I do on this post.

 

[6jase5]

I agree with the above regarding resume, no, no benefit from a social fraternity.

Our fraternity had 38 or 40 full time brothers, 20 bedrooms with 2 to a room, 14 bathrooms and 2 cleaning ladies that were treated like royalty (the pledges cleaned up after parties, not the ladies).

It was MUCH cleaner than both my dorm freshman year and my apartment that I shared with 3 other guys.

 

[MakiSupaStar]

When I first joined we never had a house. It was built on campus, with strict drinking rules. The fraternity tried to force a bunch of us to live there, but we were already living off campus (on the beach in Newport Beach) and there wasn't a chance in hell we were going to live in a Frat house, in Irvine. In the end, I would argue that it created a big schism in our chapter.

 

[PortugalWillie]

So I'm in the process of becoming a member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, along with some of my friends. It's a small chapter (Gamma Xi), with only about 15 members. I've already gotten to know a lot of the members and I think that I'll make a lot of good friends. And to top it all off, it looks really good on a resume that you're part of a fraternity.

Does anybody have any good memories/stories to recall about fraternities?

Phi Mu Alpha - Upsilon Phi

I don't know how your chapter is but our chapter is very anti-frat. Be are a social frat so we don't have to let girls in but we don't have Phi Mu Alpha affiliated parties and work very hard to keep a high reputation upon the musical staff at my University. We also run one of the biggest Jazz Festivals in the Midwest and donate over a thousand dollars a year to help bring musical artist to the middle of Missouri when they would never think twice about coming here.

Overall, for a lot of people fraternities carry these negative ideas in peoples minds that are completely undeserved. Every person is different and every chapter of every frat will be different. People will always give you crap but that just means they're ignorant because they had a bad experience with one at some other point in their life.