When I decided to come to Florida State, the first thing any girl from my high school said to me was “you’re joining a sorority, right?” I’ve always been pinned by my classmates as the girl who seemed like she would fit right in with any sorority. To be honest, though, I was scared to death to come to a huge university and automatically throw myself into a random group of girls. When you really think about it, the idea of sororities, in general, is kind of weird. You go through recruitment for a week and talk to girls in 17 different chapters for 5 to 15 minutes at a time, and based on those extremely short conversations, you are expected to find your forever home. Trust me, I was so pessimistic going into recruitment that I almost didn’t sign up for it. I didn’t care what all my friends thought I should do. I seriously did not want to join what I thought was a community of random girls thrown together who drank and partied their way through college.
Now that I’m on the other side of the recruitment process, I can tell you that I am happily a member of a sorority and found every single worry and stereotype that I had of sororities to be untrue. Instead of it being a week of pettiness, competition and fake smiles, it ended up being one of the longest and most rewarding weeks of my entire life. To any other girl who is on the fence about doing sorority recruitment, here are the three things I learned and three reasons why I truly think that every girl should give Greek life a chance.
1. You discover what you really want to do while you’re at FSU
Talking about yourself all day to a dozen different girls who know nothing about you can be quite tiring and overwhelming. Having to explain who you are, your values and your goals at FSU over and over again can seem tedious and repetitive to some. I discovered it to be an amazing way to reflect on what I really want to get out of my college experience. Moving into the dorms and immersing yourself in a completely new city and environment can definitely take over your life and distract you from remembering what you really want to do in college. Instead, through recruitment, I was able to really think about why I chose my major, why I wanted to get involved in certain clubs and what goals I saw myself creating and achieving as a collegiette.
2. You realize that you are capable of so much more than you think you are
Waking up at 7 a.m. every day for a week to do hair and makeup so that you can walk around in heels in the pouring rain did not sound fun to me. As I went through the week, I realized that this was not a rumor that I heard. I actually did have to run around in the rain with heels in hand to get to the next house on time. Sure, this doesn’t exactly sound like the most fun situation, but that was just one of the many situations during recruitment that made me realize that I did not have to be afraid to start college. As silly as it may sound, because of recruitment and throwing myself into this completely unnatural social situation, I started college with so much more self-confidence and bravery to step out of my comfort zone. I can proudly say that I have approached my professors, extended a hello to random students in my classes and went alone to club meetings that I never thought I would go to. Since I was a shy high school student, I truly never thought it would be possible to gain this much confidence from a single week of my life, but I wholeheartedly feel like the recruitment process encouraged me to be myself without worry.
3. You start off the school year meeting a solid group of empowered women
Don’t be like me and assume that stereotypical sorority girls will greet you at the door of each house. Over the entire week of recruitment, I did not meet one girl who fit the category of ditzy, boy-crazy or party obsessed that we generally see portrayed in the movies. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised to meet so many upperclassmen that were very academically driven and held many leadership positions on campus. These girls gave me amazing advice on how to start off my life as an FSU student and provided me with connections and contacts that I needed to start achieving my goals. Even though I only knew these girls for an average of ten minutes each, they opened up to me and empowered me to be myself and not change my personality or my aspirations just to fit into a group. Now as a mere freshman, I already have numerous older girls who support me and want me to reach out to them anytime I have a question or want to get involved with something they are involved in on campus. They didn’t care whether or not I joined their sorority or any sorority at all. All the women truly cared about was that I was happy and that I was being the real version of myself.
If you find yourself unsure about whether or not you want to put yourself through recruitment, just know that it will be the longest yet most rewarding week of your life. It doesn’t matter if you end up joining a sorority in the end, your life truly will be changed for the better by participating in this crazy process.