    I am the opposite of the sorority girl you see on TV. I wake up ten minutes before class starts so I am perpetually late. The only accessory my hair sees is a brush, and on the off chance that I find the time to do my makeup, it doesn’t extend far beyond eyeliner. In high school, I swore I would never be part of a sorority. The media does a great job of showing us that the only girls that go Greek are the ones that can find a party on a Tuesday. They are blonde and thin and tall and wouldn’t look twice in my direction as they pass by tossing their hair and holding non-fat Starbucks lattes. So you can imagine my surprise, looking back at that younger me, while sitting in my room in a sorority house, wearing my letters, and talking with my sisters. I have come a long way since high school, but the most unexpected thing I have ever done was rushing a sorority. With sorority preview just a couple weekends ago, my PHA experience is at the front of my mind.
           My family has never been very interested in Greek life, which is why it was so surprising when my older sister was dead set on being in a sorority. Her senior year of high school was devoted to imaging her magical future in college which a focus on the sorority she would pledge. As two very different daughters, I figured if my sister was meant to be in a sorority, I surely was not. We could not possibly fit in with the same type of people in the same type of groups. To me, sororities seemed closed off and elitist. They seemed less about making friends and more about finding the perfect stereotypical pretty girl to take good pictures with. Turns out I had been doing some false stereotyping of my own.
      Doing sorority recruitment is something I will never regret. I stepped out of my comfort zone and chose to undergo something unlike anything I will ever be part of again, and I ended up gaining a bunch of new friends and experiences. I now live in the sorority house, have two roommates who I love and would probably never have met if not for this process, and over thirty other house mates who I get to call friends. I get to be part of a group of people that will always make me feel welcome. I am able to participate in a philanthropy that I truly care about and want to make a difference in.
           Each girl I have met in PHA is very different from the last. We are all our own person, and although we all are a part of Greek life, we have remained true to ourselves throughout the recruitment process. There is no “typical sorority girl” that you can spot walking down the street and know immediately her lifestyle. The girls who choose to go through recruitment are a diverse group that represent a variety of women on campus. I had wrongly stereotyped an entire huge group of strong and ambitious women as superficial. There is more to PHA than just one type of girl and I have learned this throughout meeting and getting to know so many different and wonderful people.
    I would never tell young women that they have to go through sorority recruitment to feel accepted and wanted. A sorority is like another extracurricular group on campus. No one is banging down my door telling me I have to join the marketing club, and the same goes for PHA. Sororities and Greek life should not define a person; it is just another activity they participate in. My experience in a sorority has been amazing and I wouldn’t trade it for the world, but contrary to popular belief, being in a sorority hasn’t changed who I am. I am still the same girl who thought I would never fit in Greek life, it just turns out Greek life isn’t as one sided as I had wrongly judged it to be.
Images: The Odyssey Online, Hopkins Interactive, Blox Images, UA Greeks