Not everyone can be a DePauw Tiger. 

We all know what it's like. You're hanging out with a group of high school friends while everyone exchanges college stories. They recount tales of mediocre house parties, and so called “traditions,” and you sit there thinking, “you need to come to DePauw.” When it’s your time to elaborate on your college adventures, people look at you like you have two heads. The things you try to explain to your friends are completely lost, because they believe you go to school in the middle of the cornfields of Indiana. Well, yes, in fact we do and that is why we really do the coolest things.

Here are five things that NDS (Non DePauw students. Yes I made that up, maybe it will catch on) will not understand, and here is how you tactfully explain it to them.

1.     Flower Ins- New Members stand on the stairs, wearing silly costumes waiting eagerly for their fraternity men in shining armor to enter with beautiful flowers and to serenade them. Kneeling down, like true gentlemen, they hand a gorgeous rose (or pipe cleaner concoction, if Beta Theta Pi comes to visit) to a lovely new sorority woman who cannot stop blushing as her new sisters cheer her on. Maybe, just maybe, if there is love in the air, the two new members will share a kiss. Embarrassing Facebook pictures immediately follow.

2.     Boulder Runs- On the first snowfall, after being “bouldered” in beer pong, or simply because you feel like it, DePauw men and women will flock to a big rock in the middle of campus, completely naked (Yes, completely naked. If you are wearing clothes, IT DOES NOT COUNT). Some are even bold (see what I did there?) enough to not run, but rather stroll. Very slowly. These people make everyone feel incredibly uncomfortable.

3.     Little 5- A week in spring that ends in a race where men and women are crazy enough to spend their second semester training to ride a bike in circles for an hour, while everyone cheers them on…or they forget a race is occurring and just stay on the deck/porch/lawn of their fraternity of choice. On the morning of this glorious race, the school will flock to Sigma Chi to have their own race, Tour de Franzia, which the Delta Gammas win EVERY YEAR (A DG explained to me once how they do it. BRILLIANT), while the bike riders sit in a fetal position crying in their bed, hoping they will not crash (Oh, was that just me? Hmm).

4.     Monon- A week in the fall that ends with the biggest football game of the season, against the Wabash Little Giants, a school deprived completely of females. If the game is at home, fraternities and alumni and basically anyone who feels like it will set up tents with great music, food, and beverages. If the game is at Wabash, well the exact same thing will happen. In big buses we flock to Crawfordsville and show these “Little Giants” what a real party looks like. Not many will even make it into the game. Sorry football boys. The winner gets a big old bell that seems pretty cool…I wouldn’t know, I’ve never actually seen it at DePauw. Maybe next year.

Greek Life, in general- “From the outside looking in you can never understand it. From the inside looking out you can never explain it”. It’s a famous quote that we’ve all heard before. But nothing else really explains Greek Life. Being a part of a sorority or fraternity is an amazing experience no matter where you go, but there really is something special about Greek Life at DePauw. A couple of sentences about how DePauw sororities and fraternities are special really doesn’t do it justice, so stayed tuned for next week’s article, “How To Explain DePauw Greek Life To Those Not Lucky Enough To Experience It”. Because, we all know, NDS’s just don’t understand.