8:45 AM: I lined my toes up to the freshly trimmed grass with sixty other college girls (all sporting our matching gold t-shirts).

8:50 AM: I glance around to find some of the girls in my small group excitedly chattering to their line buddies, while others are just taking everything in. I’m nervously fidgeting with my clothes.

8:55 AM: I chant along as our small group leaders lead us in pump-up cheers.

9:00 AM: Air horns blow all throughout Greek town. Fifteen different houses’ doors swing open and hundreds of college girls are smiling all around us, chanting at the tops of their lungs, and clapping. After we are welcomed at the front door, we file in one-by-one and are met with tiny cups of water, more chanting, and lots of conversation.

For one solid week in August, I went through formal sorority recruitment at the University of Missouri in Columbia. During that time period, 1,553 girls and I lived and breathed recruitment. We visited fifteen different chapters. We attended up to 35 events throughout the course of the six days. We chatted with many women… Roughly four per event X 35 events… so about 140 women?! Let me tell ya, it was a week to remember.

Recruitment is a “mutual selection process." The goal of it is to find a chapter that you could see yourself in and have the women in that chapter feel the same way about you. Through brief conversations (sometimes 5 minutes, sometimes 25 minutes), I worked to find a chapter that aligned with my personal, academic, social, and community-involvement goals.

Now, I don’t know how it was for the rest of the girls going through the process, but my week was filled with many highs and some lows.

Highs: Meeting incredible women, visiting all the chapters, learning a ton of new things about Greek life, the chapters, myself, etc.

Lows: Stress-eating to the max, minimal sleep (…I need A LOT of sleep to function), long—and often teary—phone calls to my parents.

SO, after reading that, some potential new members of the Greek community may be thinking, “YEAH, sign me up, let’s do this.” Others may think, “Yeah, okay… No thanks.” BUT, I am here to say that I’m so glad I decided to go through formal recruitment.

Just by going through the process, I gained the utmost respect for all the different chapters on my campus. I LOVED getting the opportunity to talk to all the different women and hear their reasons of why they love their chapter. Some reasons included: Eating dinosaur chicken tenders for lunch with their hilarious best friends, busting out the strobe lights in the bathroom for a midnight dance party, watching The Bachelor crammed together on a couch, living with 75 other girls in a giant house, always having someone down to talk to you about your great—or not-so-great—day… the list goes on and on. Just by talking to the women in the houses, I was given the chance to glimpse into their day-to-day sisterhood, and WOW, it’s something really special.

As I went through recruitment, I came face-to-face with the realization that the women in these chapters are passionate. They are strong and inspiring and kind and outgoing and intelligent and supportive and driven and I COULD JUST KEEP GOING! It was truly inspiring to witness the power of a great group of friends. The women I met built one another up and pushed each other to be the best possible versions of themselves.

I discussed academics, sisterhood, philanthropy, embarrassing stories, and everything in-between with the women in these chapters. I made some life-long friends with just a few conversations. I cried with some women because I was so in awe with their philanthropy, and laughed with others as I spilled water all over my skirt (yep, this actually happened… twice).

I know when I look back on formal recruitment I will consider it one of those “defining moments” in life. Not only did I gain an appreciation for Greek life at Mizzou and the women involved in it, but more importantly I learned a lot about myself… STho I guess all the tears and stress-eating were well worth it.