I can still vividly remember walking into the doors of the Davis Center which held sorority recruitment 2014. While I hesitantly entered, I talked on the phone with my supportive mother, who told me this would help a transfer like myself branch out and meet new people, but I begged to differ. She asked me what I was so afraid of? Why did I not want to give going out for a sorority a shot? In my mind, I was not afraid of the sorority, I was afraid of becoming something I never wanted to be, a negatively portrayed stereotype I learned during my freshman year of college at a southern school. Flashing back to that first and miserable year, I remember rolling my eyes left and right at how the school revolved around the stratiest of srats and the fratiest of frats, and how these students thrived from it. They did not prioritize school, but their social lives, lives that required sporting your most expensive labels, but more importantly, your letters.
After transferring from a near hatred towards Greek life and swearing I would never ever join, I ironically stumbled upon Pi Beta Phi. The last sorority I went to during recruitment, I walked into the room and immediately felt at home. Pleasantly surprised, I looked around the room and felt comfortable, not like the outsider I felt like last year on a campus swarming with the epitome of sorority girls. But these girls were not those girls, in fact, they didn’t feel like sorority girls. These girls presented themselves with friendly, warm and welcoming smiles. They even made me laugh. Most importantly, these girls all possessed uniquely individual personalities, creating diversity amongst a large group.
A year has gone by since my initiation into Pi Phi, and without getting too sentimentally cheesy, I honestly admit the decision positively impacted my entire transfer experience. Pi Phi did not “buy my friends,” it introduced me to intelligent goofs, loyal supporters, and genuine people beautiful on the inside and out. No purchase of Lilly Pulizter required.
This past year made me realize that not all sororities resembled depictions seen on TotalSororityMove.com, a site that encourages the image projecting one sorority girl no different from another. UVM Greek Life does not only dismiss visual conformity, but also the immoral rep sororities give themselves. Hazing does not exist, period. The dictionary defines hazing as a form of forced humiliation in order to prove oneself. Sororities claim to love all of its sisters and why would you ever want to humiliate someone you love?
I guess through my rambling, what I’m trying to say is, I not only wrongly judged sororities based off of a poor experience in the south, but I used that experience to make a generalization about all sororities. The truth is, I don’t even feel like I’m in a sorority. You may never spot me on campus sporting letters or ever hear me refer to a fellow Pi Phi as my “sister” (although we do jokingly all address each other with the title). This truth is not out of shame or embarrassment. It is simply because my sorority to me means much more than meets the eye.
So thank you, mom, for forcing me out of my comfort zone.
