Okay Ladies. Now let’s get in formation.

(The amount of times I actually heard my Pi Rho Chi say those words to me is humorous).

Panhellenic Recruitment is just around the corner, and I can truthfully say it is worth every moment. While I’m sure any potential new members reading this are probably overflowing with rumors they’ve heard about recruitment, I would hate to learn that they scared you out of going through the process altogether and left you missing out on some amazing opportunities.

So here I have constructed a list of essentials for starting and ending recruitment unscathed:

1. Mints + Cough drops
   Lucky for me, (because I’m extremely lazy), recruitment is entirely talking. While I could easily talk for hours sometimes my body can’t keep up. Talking is tiring for long periods of time. Mints and Cough drops will keep your throat coated and your mouth awake. If that’s even a thing. I may have made that up. Nonetheless! This is first on my list for a reason. ESSENTIAL.
2. Comfortable Shoes
   You move quickly in recruitment. Everyone is a busy bee! There’s a lot of important places to be. Having comfortable shoes of all variety is extremely important because you’ll be up on your feet a lot. Buying inserts or just band aids for the back of heels and flats can be a life saver.
3. Protein Bar
   You’re working harder than you think at recruitment. It’s important to remember to eat and eat smart. Small food that gives you quick and essential nourishment adds up and means a lot to your body. Trust me. No one likes to be hangry.
4. Tea + honey
   The fact that you will lose your voice is kind of inevitable. You have a lot of girls talking all at once and so you’ll be talking over others. Having a nice cup of tea maybe with some honey at the end of each day before going to sleep will help minimize that as much as possible. Truthfully by the end of it, a spoonful of honey was my best friend.
5. Tissues
   First off, it isn’t uncommon to get some slight sniffles during or after recruitment, you’re just being exposed to tons of people for hours on end. Second off, the experience can be emotional. This isn’t the case for everyone but it isn’t unusual to happen. Nonetheless, leaving some tissue boxes in the room can never hurt!
6. Coffee
   You’ll likely be pretty tired when you come home from your recruitment days. Never hurts to start the next morning off with a warm cup of coffee to get yourself awake and pumped for things to come.
7. Deodorant and Perfume
   This is kind of common sense. You’re meeting new people, you know?
8. Spandex
   Dresses fly, ladies. While yes, it’s just a bunch of girls around, it will probably make you feel more comfortable to have some sort of cover underneath there just in case the weather turns. You never know!
9. Handy Chapstick/Lipstick
   Makeup is absolutely in no way a necessity for recruitment. Using chapstick or lipstick however was a great way to keep my lips fresh for more talking. Again, your mouth gets tired.
10. Prepacked Food
    When you get home from recruitment you’re probably going to want to crash. Stocking up on some sort of microwaveable food or something you can quickly and easily have for dinner becomes pretty important.
11. Meds
    Emergen-C and Advil Liquigels practically saved my life through the whole process. Luckily for me I felt right as rain every day thanks to these two. I should probably write some sort of thank you letter to the companies, honestly…

Overall (and this is the most important part), the entire experience should be exciting! It is draining there’s no doubt about it. BUT. Like I said at the beginning of this article, I wouldn’t take it back for the world!

Everyone’s experience is going to be different and I wrote this guide based off of my personal one. Nonetheless, it’s pretty generic and I hope it helps anyone reading it feel a little more settled!

Have FUN and GO GREEK.