Join Frat?

I had an awesome time in my frat. Lots of drinking, great memories, and tons of friends came out of it. On the other hand, my grades probably werent as good as they could've been. Overall I recommend it though.
 
I did and it was probably one of the better decisions I made.

Just go meet the guys, see if you get along with them, and make a decision based on that.
 
Stay open minded about it. I have heard many many stories where people joined frats or sororities and their grades suffered severly. A lot of it has to do with how social you are and if you can make friends with ease, greek life forces friends on you (this is what i believe). I made many friends in college and was never in a fraternity and I did hang out with many sorority girls so it isn't something you have to do. I recommend not joining, but that's just me. Like the others said, get a feel for how your school is with greek life.
 
Just to add based on the other responses, I've been in a fraternity throughout college and have maintained a 4.0 GPA, so don't think that joining a fraternity will lower your grades as a matter of course. It's all about the level of self-control you feel you can and/or are willing to exert, so consider that first.
 
I was in a fraternity in college, a real great decision, made some of my best friends in it. Couple tips, don't lose contact with the other friends you make it college just because you join a frat. Make sure you still make school a top priority, if you see members a lot of the members not going to classes and getting bad grades it is prob a bad sign. I saw kids who once they were brothers just let their GPAs go to shit with crashing at peoples houses and smoking way too much dope.

Make sure you know how much it will cost you per year and never let anyone hit you or force you to drink.
 
Something to consider, our hazing was totally off the charts hectic. Fukcing brutal. I can see how people die from this stuff. The amount of alcohol we had to drink was just completely unreasonable. A lot of frats say they don't haze. A lot of those same frats are total fukcing liars. They will lie to your face about this. I'm not saying ALL do... but there is a tradition and don't believe a PR pledgemaster telling you it's going to be hard "but not like the hazing days of yore"... our hazing was EXACTLY like the hazing days of yore. I had to be stitched up on site. I'm not kidding, either. There was some serious mental and physical abuse. I would liken it (though I haven't been) to boot camp.. but maybe worse, because it's unchecked and administered by angry drunk jocks.

All in all I thought it was pretty fucking stupid. Mostly because I'm not a big sports fan. It was nice having hot 19 year old around all the time, but if you're a pimp you can figure that out on your own probably.

I was young, and I thought it was going to be like Revenge of the Nerds. I don't regret the experience though (even though I might sound like I do ;) )
 
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NERDS!
 
I highly recommend it, it's a lot of fun and the leadership and service oppurtunities are many. Also lots of social events and friends. My grades actually went up, and yeah it's about self control when it comes to partying.
 
Hm.

- Shop around and find out if there's an org that may be for you. Ask yourself these questions:
1. Would I be friends with these guys?
2. Do I want to get involved in what they're doing?
3. If I want to get involved, how much time am I willing to dedicate?

- If you're looking for doing service or upping your social life, there are probably a ton of clubs on campus ready to welcome you. You don't need a fraternity for that.

- If you're looking just to make new friends... you certainly don't need a fraternity for that.

Ultimately... it's looking for a cause and a crowd that suits you. That's what Greek life is. Sadly, some of them barely have any purposes other than playing beer pong and flip cup.
 
i did the next best thing.. was friends with a lot of the brothers..they wanted me to join.. but I wasn't going to.. I enjoyed the perks...without all the hazing and bullshit
 
I was in one and it was the best decision I made in college. But frats aren't for everyone. Talk to people in the different frats at your college, see what they like/dislike about it and find one that fits you. If none fit your needs, then just walk away.
 
I had an awesome time in my fraternity in college. If you pledge, don't do anything you don't want to do or anything that makes you uncomfortable. Pledging was crazy and I drank a ton but there was no nudity or weirdness involved - just a lot of cleaning, head games and I was exhausted all the time. Don't be a whiny douche about stuff though - like if your pledge class has to kill a keg or, eat a bunch of raw onions or stay awake for a week straight or something just man up and do it.
 
Alright, thanks for the advice guys. Think I'm gonna talk around a little. Don't really need it to make friends or anything like that and Im not feelin the whole hazing and pledging crap, but some of it does sound cool. But I'll see. Thanks again.
 
[quote name='Ikohn4ever']I was in a fraternity in college, a real great decision, made some of my best friends in it. Couple tips, don't lose contact with the other friends you make it college just because you join a frat. Make sure you still make school a top priority, if you see members a lot of the members not going to classes and getting bad grades it is prob a bad sign. I saw kids who once they were brothers just let their GPAs go to shit with crashing at peoples houses and smoking way too much dope.

Make sure you know how much it will cost you per year and never let anyone hit you or force you to drink.[/quote]

QFT, My grades slipped a little freshman year probably because of pledging but after that it was fine. I still have friends for life because of it, arguably got into lawschool because of it (if you're active it looks good on a resume), and met my future wife through it.
 
[quote name='pittpizza']QFT, My grades slipped a little freshman year probably because of pledging but after that it was fine. I still have friends for life because of it, arguably got into lawschool because of it (if you're active it looks good on a resume), and met my future wife through it.[/QUOTE]


you have no friends
 
Well, I haven't been in nor do I plan to join a frat before my college is done, but from hearing what other people have said, theres nothing a frat gives you that you couldn't do yourself in an all-male dorm. I was in one for two years and they had tons of opportunities to do activities. Ours in particular held escort services for women, ie. if they didn't feel comfortable going somewhere at night alone, we'd walk/drive them. Our hall leaders brought in people and programs every week, stuff like, psychologists who needed people to take tests, cleaning up yards/painting houses for those who couldn't normally afford it or do it themselves. Of course its all voluntary.

Now I'm in an apartment, but I still go back to that dorm to help out with stuff.
 
[quote name='crystalklear64']Well, I haven't been in nor do I plan to join a frat before my college is done, but from hearing what other people have said, theres nothing a frat gives you that you couldn't do yourself in an all-male dorm. I was in one for two years and they had tons of opportunities to do activities. Ours in particular held escort services for women, ie. if they didn't feel comfortable going somewhere at night alone, we'd walk/drive them. Our hall leaders brought in people and programs every week, stuff like, psychologists who needed people to take tests, cleaning up yards/painting houses for those who couldn't normally afford it or do it themselves. Of course its all voluntary.

Now I'm in an apartment, but I still go back to that dorm to help out with stuff.[/quote]

No offense CryStalker, but this is exactly why you SHOULD join a frat. Unless you like hanging out in all male dorms and doing psych experienments with people like this cool cat!
 
[quote name='pittpizza']No offense CryStalker, but this is exactly why you SHOULD join a frat. Unless you like hanging out in all male dorms and doing psych experienments with people like this cool cat![/QUOTE]
Eh? So you can't help people and be an obnoxious asshole?
 
[quote name='crystalklear64']Eh? So you can't help people and be an obnoxious asshole?[/quote]


Umm....yes....wait, I meant no...actually I don't think I understand the question.

I do think its possible to help people and be an obnoxious asshole, I'm quite good at it. I was actually the philanthropy chair of my fraternity for a while. I just didn't really get a kick out of hanging around a sausage filled dorm doing psych experiements.
 
[quote name='pittpizza']Umm....yes....wait, I meant no...actually I don't think I understand the question.

I do think its possible to help people and be an obnoxious asshole, I'm quite good at it. I was actually the philanthropy chair of my fraternity for a while. I just didn't really get a kick out of hanging around a sausage filled dorm doing psych experiements.[/QUOTE]
Lets get rid of a couple posts here:
Me: Strange, I didn't know they started letting women join frats..

You: Ladies from soroities and people's gf's come over etc.

Me: The same goes for a dorm. Instead of soroities you have "sister" halls, all female dorms that get together with us and vice versa for events and just for hanging out whatever.
 
Here is a list of things that I could do in my frat house that you (or I or anybody else) could never do in a dorm without having to worry about getting busted or actually getting busted.

1. Have pledges to, umm....do stuff.
2. Skateboarding/snowboarding down our stairs.
3. Play with fire.
4. Smoke, all kinds of things.
5. Drink, all kinds of things.
6. Have dogs, cats, iguanas, snakes, whatever.
7. Fight.
8. Joust with shopping carts, mop buckets, using mops and rakes etc...
9. Play beer pong.
10. Have kegs.
11. Have loud ass parties where hundreds of girls get totally obliterated.
12. Pudding wrestling contests (yes I know its cliche but we actually did it and it was fucking great!)
13. Chill on the roof.
14. Roof test things (microwaves, old tv's, Ikea furniture, etc..)
15. Have watergun fights inside.
16. Have snowball fights inside (i live in PA so it snows).
17. Do all kinds of secret frat shit that I am not at liberty to disclose.
18. Prevent police from entering without a warrant.
19. Have mardi gras themed parties where the girl with the most beads gets a present. (Drunk college coeds will do ALOT to get beads when they think there is a present.)
20. Most importantly, all of the shit I didnt mention but you can use your imagination.

But yeaah, psychology experiments and cleaning yards are fun too. :bs:
 
[quote name='pittpizza']Here is a list of things that I could do in my frat house that you (or I or anybody else) could never do in a dorm without having to worry about getting busted or actually getting busted.

1. Have pledges to, umm....do stuff.
2. Skateboarding/snowboarding down our stairs.
3. Play with fire.
4. Smoke, all kinds of things.
5. Drink, all kinds of things.
6. Have dogs, cats, iguanas, snakes, whatever.
7. Fight.
8. Joust with shopping carts, mop buckets, using mops and rakes etc...
9. Play beer pong.
10. Have kegs.
11. Have loud ass parties where hundreds of girls get totally obliterated.
12. Pudding wrestling contests (yes I know its cliche but we actually did it and it was fucking great!)
13. Chill on the roof.
14. Roof test things (microwaves, old tv's, Ikea furniture, etc..)
15. Have watergun fights inside.
16. Have snowball fights inside (i live in PA so it snows).
17. Do all kinds of secret frat shit that I am not at liberty to disclose.
18. Prevent police from entering without a warrant.
19. Have mardi gras themed parties where the girl with the most beads gets a present. (Drunk college coeds will do ALOT to get beads when they think there is a present.)
20. Most importantly, all of the shit I didnt mention but you can use your imagination.

But yeaah, psychology experiments are fun too. :bs:[/QUOTE]

i see it also taught u modesty and how to win the respect of peers and colleagues
 
[quote name='Ikohn4ever']i see it also taught u modesty and how to win the respect of peers and colleagues[/quote]

No that I got from you sweet cheeks.
 
NICE!!! fucking animal house!

Im not trying to be nasty or come off like an ass, and Crystal I apologize for my first post about you being geeky. Im just trying to expose the joys of being in a frat. There is alot more opportunity for "boys to be boys." than you can get in a dorm or apt.

Keep in mind as well that MANY frats are different and an on campus frat (bldng owned by univer) is much more limited than an off campus frat. I can pretty much gurantee you though that most frats will have at least 15 or so of the 20 things I mentioned. If those kinds of experiences interest you, join up, if not, it may not be for you. It basically depends on what your idea of fun is and how much fun you want to have.

EDIT: BTW Ikohn and I aren't fighting, we are actually Pledge Brothers! Fall '00!
 
[quote name='pittpizza']It basically depends on what your idea of fun is and how much fun you want to have.[/quote]

Attending college is not meant to be fun.;)
 
YMMV. I personally think frats, and greek life in general are FTL. Here's my money so you can be my friend.

A buddy of mine joined Theta Chi. His hazing? He was stuck in a tiny room with no windows and with all the other pledges for a week. That was their bed for the week. The floor. Oh, and they had a bunch of loud ass speakers playing "My Humps" on repeat ALL night. After that, all the pledges had to drink a fifth of vodka by themselves within an hour. That was also the same night where he puked in his clothes drawer and peed out the window in the middle of the night. Oh BTW, we were dorm roommates when this happened.
 
As to the heres my money so you can be my friend argument, many of our brothers didn't pay their dues on time and some never did.

Plus I've been out of college for 4 years now and still maintain about 6-10 close friendships. They still make me pay them though. :(
 
[quote name='shieryda']Attending college is not meant to be fun.;)[/quote]

Oops, then I really dropped the ball on that one because I HAD A BLAST!!! For what its worth, undergrad is a lot more fun than lawschool was. My lawschool frat did absolutely nothing, although because of it now I can say I was in the same lawschool frat as Bill Clinton.

Oh yeah Pittsburgh in the house! Thx for the welcome DJSteel.
 
Ask yourself how much you are willing to endure to make insta-friends. I wouldn't have lasted two days in a frat. The first time I was told to, say, recite the alphabet backwards, I would have said "no thanks." This would be followed by a "you didn't do what the older members told so so you must clean the bathroom with your bare hands." I would, again, say "that's not going to happen." Then I would be kicked out.

On the other hands, if you really get into games like truth or dare, then you may like greek life. I know many people that would not have made it through college without the greek network supporting them. If you tour greek houses before college starts, it is easy to get caught up in the fun and think it's the only way to go. Just take a step back and think about what you want to do with your time and decide if greekdom is an avenue for that.
 
[quote name='pittpizza']Here is a list of things that I could do in my frat house that you (or I or anybody else) could never do in a dorm without having to worry about getting busted or actually getting busted.

1. Have pledges to, umm....do stuff.
2. Skateboarding/snowboarding down our stairs.
3. Play with fire.
4. Smoke, all kinds of things.
5. Drink, all kinds of things.
6. Have dogs, cats, iguanas, snakes, whatever.
7. Fight.
8. Joust with shopping carts, mop buckets, using mops and rakes etc...
9. Play beer pong.
10. Have kegs.
11. Have loud ass parties where hundreds of girls get totally obliterated.
12. Pudding wrestling contests (yes I know its cliche but we actually did it and it was fucking great!)
13. Chill on the roof.
14. Roof test things (microwaves, old tv's, Ikea furniture, etc..)
15. Have watergun fights inside.
16. Have snowball fights inside (i live in PA so it snows).
17. Do all kinds of secret frat shit that I am not at liberty to disclose.
18. Prevent police from entering without a warrant.
19. Have mardi gras themed parties where the girl with the most beads gets a present. (Drunk college coeds will do ALOT to get beads when they think there is a present.)
20. Most importantly, all of the shit I didnt mention but you can use your imagination.

But yeaah, psychology experiments and cleaning yards are fun too. :bs:[/QUOTE]
Well, again its going to depend on your dorm/frat but I can only go off of what I have experienced. Of your list the stuff that we could do no problem:
2. Skateboarding/snowboarding down our stairs.
3. Play with fire. (so long as you disconnected the firealarm first and stayed away from the mercury tubes)
5. Drink, all kinds of things. (technically only allowed in your own room)
8. Joust with shopping carts, mop buckets, using mops and rakes etc... (outside as there wasn't any room to fit 2 shopping carts side by side in the halls)
9. Play beer pong.
10. Have kegs. (In your room.)
15. Have watergun fights inside.
16. Have snowball fights inside (i live in PA so it snows).
18. Prevent police from entering without a warrant.

I'm sure you could do this as well, but we also did airsoft/some guys had these wickedly modified nerf guns that shot thumbtacks (enjoy your aids) etc.

The main things that the dorms will limit you on is excess of any of this stuff. Since you have a lot more people than in a frat, you have to be considerate of others. I would hope that the same would be true of a frat, but I doubt it. I would guess that if anyone objected to a huge party at a frat since they had a massive test or something, they would be told tough shit, go somewhere else to study. I would not be too happy about that if I was paying good money to be in a frat.

Again, this is all dependent on different stuff. Maybe you like that sort of thing, maybe not. What I think is important is to meet the guys/get a feel for how they are going to behave and what their habits and policies are, and if you don't like it, don't feel that you are "settling" for a dorm instead. I feel that you can get just as much enjoyment from being in the dorms.
 
yeah Crystal your last post is directly on point. I will say that I really doubt you could do all those things without at least having to worry about getting in trouble but if you did then you went to A VERY, VERY, lenient school with amazingly loose and risky safety policies.

You are correct about having to deal with parties and other people having fun when you are trying to study. I lived in the house (wasnt required but hella cheap rent) for a year and was ready to leave at the end of the year. I had to go to the library to study. It basically depends on the type of person you are and what your idea of fun is and how much fun you want to have.

As to the pains of pledging, once again this is very context specific and varies greatly depending upon the frat. I can tell you though that it does create close bonds that you will never have with people who have not gone through it. Taking the bar exam to get a license to practice law was very similar to pledging IMO, it is a completely uneccessary hoop to jump through, and a real lawyer would never have to do such a thing in practice, however it creates a close bond amongst lawyers knowing that we have all gone through the same thing together. This isnt a greek thing, it also occurs in any armed forces, any professional sporting organization, any college sporting org, and many other contexts. It binds people closer together and creates unity.
 
Best decision by far I made in college. I waited a few years, and started to hang out just because I wanted to know if the sterotypes were true. I waited another year and became a associate member (pledge) and it was a great experience. I got into other organizations after I joined (student governemnt, residence hall association) started a organization, and my grades sky rocketed. I ended up getting a double bachelors degree and went away to grad school. When I came back from grad school last year, I had no place to stay, so I moved into the house temporally. I ended up staying until a few weeks ago. It was a great experience, got me into taking a few classes to prepare for law school, and I became a associate member counselor (pledgemaster) which is the greatest experience I had ever had in any college related activity. If you have the drive, go for it, just make sure you join the one thats right for you.
 
I got reported by an RA once. I know he was just doing his job but still, you dont occupy a very beloved position. It is basically your job to snitch on people usually just breaking rules like drinking and smoking. Am I wrong?

Also on a side note, statistics almost universally show (at everyschool) the greek GPA is higher than the non-greek GPA.

Man I should be getting paid by the frats and sorostitutes for this.
 
[quote name='pittpizza']I got reported by an RA once. I know he was just doing his job but still, you dont occupy a very beloved position. It is basically your job to snitch on people usually just breaking rules like drinking and smoking. Am I wrong?

Also on a side note, statistics almost universally show (at everyschool) the greek GPA is higher than the non-greek GPA.

Man I should be getting paid by the frats and sorostitutes for this.[/QUOTE]

I would disagree with this assessment. Confrontation and documentation is a minimal part of our job. However, it is a part of our job to confront disruptive behavior in the community.

And none of us expect to be beloved, if you do, you shouldn't be an RA.
 
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