It's freshman year of high school, and you have just graduated from a total class size of 24 from middle school. The probability of you knowing anyone is slim to none. There's signs and posters plastered across bulletin boards regarding pottery club, photography, maybe even cinema club, but none those seem to catch your eye. Then you see a huge poster titled "Football Tryouts at 3:30" or "Volleyball Tryouts." This is the beginning of a memorable four years of your life. From this point on, you will learn how to communicate with others, understand the importance of working hard and, most importantly, gain so many new friends.
It's graduation day and the homecoming games and the sounds of cheering students and families begin to fade away. You are on to the next biggest step of your life, which is college, and you are more nervous then that first day of high school.
Move-in day comes and you see "Go Greek," "Huskies Don't Haze" and multiple funny letters displayed all over campus. While moving in, you are handed papers to come visit “Greek Row.” Before you know it, you are visiting these houses that seem amazing at the moment, but later that night will become a montage of LED lights and hundreds of people.
Your first night out is a success, and you begin to want to go back there and discover what those letters on the front lawn really mean. The first meeting is similar to that of the first day of those tryouts you had in high school. The structure is very professional, and each person of this new "team" has their own role in the process of overall making this organization better. Similar to team sports in high school, they wear their "jerseys," or letters, with dignity, and stress the importance of what these letters mean to them.
"Tryouts" are over, and it's the day of initiation, where you become a member of this new team that you have grown to love so much. The letters are not only random symbols but an oath that you will put in the hard work to contribute to this family. The upcoming intramural sports and philanthropies give you an opportunity to bond with your new teammates and make you realize that this was the best decision so far of your life.
Overall, you realize you have grown not only physically (with the freshman 15) but mentally throughout your freshman year of college, and much of this growing can be contributed back to that new team you joined, or, simply, Greek life. The understanding that your fraternity or sorority can affect so many others in very positive ways pushes you to do whatever it takes to get it done. Now that you have taken these letters to heart, it becomes your responsibility to make others see all Greeks, not as people who party every day, but introduce them to the professional process that you were introduced to that very first day.
The attributions of hard work, dedication and overall camaraderie has carried over from high school sports into Greek life, which not only makes it easy to fit in, but these important traits improve your organization in so many ways.
Those letters are displayed across the country and when you leave college it is an obligation to become successful and continue to wear those letters in your heart for the rest of your life.
