Joining a sorority was something that I have wanted to do for as long as I can remember. In middle school, I read a book and the main character ended up going to college and joining a sorority. Through this, she found her best friends, her future bridesmaids, and the girls that she could trust with everything. This picture perfect idea of a sorority had been in my head for the past six years, so when I FINALLY was able to join a chapter for myself, I was over the moon. In fact, I was PNM 14, that's how quickly I applied for recruitment.

At my university, the recruitment process started a week before move in. This meant that my family and I headed to Pullman, WA with a truck full of stuff ready to move me into college. After moving in everything and getting my room just the way that I wanted, it was time to say goodbye to my family. And let me tell you, I was a mess. Not even 30 minutes later I was in a room meeting the girls in my recruitment group still recovering from saying goodbye to my family. It was overwhelming, to say the least.

Aside from my day going from saying goodbye to my parents straight into recruitment mode, we spend the evening on a field with thousands of other girls hearing from passionate members of the Panhellenic Council on my campus about all of the wonderful benefits of joining a sisterhood on our campus. We heard about the rules and guidelines of recruitment and how each of the next few days would look. I left that field looking sororities a completely different way.

I personally am not a huge feminist.

Of course, I am all for equal rights and female empowerment, but the way that the women spoke on my campus just was not something I resonated with. I didn't like not being able to do anything all week other than rush. The idea that I couldn't vent about my day to my boyfriend or other friends on campus was something that I did not agree with. Being told that I was going to spend the next day learning about what I value in myself from people that didn't seem to buy into it either just did not sound appealing.

There were so many things that I just couldn't connect within the process that I felt like it was the best thing for me if I dropped.

I spent the next week in my room, getting ready for classes, working out, meeting people on campus that weren't going through recruitment either. I learned more about myself in that week that I wasn't going through recruitment than I think I would've if I had gone through recruitment. There are completely times that I see girls on our Greek row or when I go to my roommate's sorority house with her that I wish I wouldn't have dropped. But there are also so many more times that I see people spending so much time devoted to their chapter, that I wonder how they are not failing their classes.

For some, joining a sorority is completely for them and something that they would never change, but for me and I'm sure many others not getting involved in that way is also a really good thing. Knowing yourself and understanding more about what you hope to get out of college will always help to make those tough decisions like should you, or should you not rush.