“Guys, everyone thinks we’re a lame sorority that nobody talks to.”

With the school year rapidly approaching, chapters all over campus are beginning to prepare for the chaotic week of girl flirting, and song singing that is known as formal recruitment. The five day long process always consists of long hours, high heels and matching outfits. Behind the scenes, making sure recruitment is executed according to plan, can be hard work. Therefore, recruitment counselors, or Sigma Rho Chis, help Panhellenic executive board members execute the process, and act as the glue that holds it all together.

When I began my training as a Sigma Rho Chi, nicknamed Rho Chi for short, I was excited to lead a group of young women through the recruitment process, and bond with girls from other chapters. Training prepared us for a variety of different situations that could occur during recruitment, but it did not prepare me for the extreme challenge of becoming disaffiliated. Accepting the position to become a Rho Chi meant not only cutting off all contact with my own chapter, but also cutting off contact with the entire Greek community -- we were to become invisible. Talking to, texting, emailing or even sending a carrier pigeon to anyone in the Greek community who was affiliated with a chapter, was strictly forbidden. 

Suddenly, I went from having hundreds of friends in Greek life to having exactly 38. Twenty-five other Rho Chis plus the 13 members of the Executive Board were the only people on campus I could talk to in the Greek community. 

We all know how massive SDSU’s student population is, so the odds of finding one of these 38 girls on campus was extremely slim. I walked to class alone only to sit by myself and, at times, I was quite lonely. But then, I would see a fellow Rho Chi walking alone on campus and we would immediately run to each other, ecstatic to finally have someone to talk to and share our lonely grievances with.

Although being disaffiliated was difficult, it caused all of us to form a special bond that nobody else in the Greek community shares. This “exile” we were all in together, was a uniting force that led to some long lasting friendships, a bond that I will never have with other members of my own chapter. Even to this day, when I see a fellow Rho Chi, we run up to each other with the same euphoria as we did when we saw each other on campus during recruitment.

If you were to ask any sorority woman what one of the best parts about recruitment is, she would most likely say something along the lines of becoming closer to members in her chapter. But to a former Sigma Rho Chi like myself, it’s becoming closer to members of different chapters that makes recruitment so special.