This week at Penn State marked the beginning of one of the craziest times of the year, sorority rush. While the 200+ girl sororities gear up to take old main on bid day the professional sororities can tend to get pushed to the side. That is why I figured I'd take the opportunity to share what I think some of the best things are about being in a professional sorority. (Side bar: You join the sorority you feel you fit into and this is why I feel I fit with a professional sorority.)

1. Size matters

Whoever said bigger is better didn't take into consider sororities. I love the fact that I can say I have every single sisters phone number in my phone. During rush I interviewed every single sister and can honestly say I would feel comfortable reaching out to any of them for anything. The fact that we all have some kind of a relationship with every member of our organization really does help it feel like a family.

2. Knowledge of your college

Being an associate chapter of Panhellenic usually comes with other requirements or facets. For example, my sorority is a Professional Agricultural Sorority. This means we have to have 75% of our majors within the college of Agriculture. No this does not mean that we all want to be farmers. At Penn State, for example, the College of Agricultures has the traditional agriculture majors such as Agribusiness Management and Ag. Extension Education, but also includes majors like Food Science, Veterinary Science, Wildlife Science, and Community Environment Development. I've extended my knowledge of different fields of our society and met some of the most passionate young girls about their future careers.

3. Similar interests

Everyone joins a sorority for a reason, however, in a professional sorority it is usually for your interests. In my case, every girl in some way has a passion for the environment and the world around us. Even the girls that aren't in a major in the College of Agriculture might just have an interest in biology or grew up riding horses or was also interested in about how we can have a more sustainable world. Whatever their reason, I am never short of having a volunteer to go adventure with.

4. Study buddies (checkout Kines045: Intro to Scuba Diving)

Since most of us share a major there is always someone to help you study for a test you both have coming up or an older sister to help give you pointers on tough classes they may have already taken. You almost always have a seat partner for class and you most definitely have no shortage on advice.

5. Professional development

Aside from always having someone to help you do well in school, you also have someone to help you do well in the workplace. You have a whole slew of girls ready to tell you about or recommend you for internships, jobs and furthering education programs. It opens up a whole new set of opportunities for you to try and get ahead in our future careers. We also have a professional speaker about once a month. It could be anyone from a teacher at the school, to a person in the career you're working toward, we've even had a Peace Corps volunteer come and talk to us.

6. Leadership opportunities

Even though we might not be as big we still require a lot of organization. Between being on the executive board, a committee head or even just being highly involved, there are numerous opportunities to test out your leadership opportunities. You can have a position that lasts one semester or a full year and there's no limit to the amount of different positions you can hold. Girls will often take positions their first semester as members and hold different positions throughout their time as an active sister.

7. Involvement in the university

The fact that we're smaller allows for us to be involved with everything the sorority is involved in. My first semester as a sister I was able make a connection with our THON child, organize socials and get to better know fraternities, participate in Greek Week and so on. Involvement in the fun things aren't reserved for the older girls of the sorority, everyone has an opportunity to get involved. The sisterhood thrives off of how involved girls want to be so every girl is encouraged to get involved.

8. You have a voice

Every decision that is made is made by every girl in the sorority. Everyone has input and any change the sorority faces is run by everyone at chapter. We actually vote to gauge interest/agreement and take every members opinion into account. That isn't to say that exec helps mediate all of the opinions, but you can be sure that if you have an opinion about something you will be asked for it.

9. We Do All the Fun Things Too

I think there is a little bit of a stigma with professional sororities that we aren't as involved socially with the greek community. But make no mistake, we've seen our share of elevated surfaces. We have socials every week, participate in the themes, host formals, go to frat formals and can tailgate with the best of them. The girls helping you study for that O-Chem exam are the same girls who will be celebrating that 'A' with you later.

10. We are proud of our letters

I think this goes for every sorority when I say our letters are more than letters. We've had some of our best memories in our letters, with our sisters and we wouldn't trade them for anything. They represent the people who have shared our late night ice cream runs, our hours of studying, our endless Netflix binges and maybe the help we needed to get home sometimes. They represent our best friends, our classmates, our room mates and our family up at school. There has never been a saying more true than, "it's not four years, it's for life" and our letters will represent that long after our time at school.

So, incoming freshman and those new to Greek life this fall, don't count out the smaller sororities, you never know what you might find in them.

And shout out to all my Sigma Alpha girls out there, can't wait to be reunited in August.

Love above everything.