I joined my sorority during the fall semester of my sophomore year in college. The school I went to only allowed fraternities and sororities if they were associated to a local organization, which was good for us because we didn't have to pay ridiculous amounts of money. My experience was mostly positive. There were a few struggles, but that's like with anything in life. Here are four reasons why I don't regret my decision to join my sorority.
1. I gained more family.
My biological family is already pretty large, but I always have room in my heart for more. I joined a line of sisterhood that extended back about 20 years. I had more sisters than I knew what to do with. I'd be honest in saying that we all had a best-friend-braiding-each other's hair relationship. But you know what made us work as a family? None of us really went into college with the idea of joining a sorority. We used to joke that we were the sorority of non-sorority girls.
2. It made me stronger.
I'll be honest, not all of the moments were shiny and clean. Sometimes being in the sorority was work. Work not to make someone mad; work not to say the wrong thing to someone; work to grow your numbers. Sometimes the effort overwhelmed my desire to stay, but I toughed it out. And I'm glad to say that I did. If I had let my fears or intimidation of other people drive my passion, I would not have become the president of my sorority, or the president of Fraternity/Sorority Life as a whole.
3. It helped me come out of my shell.
I was, and still am to an extent, an extremely shy person. Unless I knew you really well, I couldn't get through a conversation without turning the color of a tomato. That has greatly improved. Now I usually only blush talking to an extremely attractive male. I used to have trouble talking to a group of 5 people. Joining this sorority helped me stand in front of a room of about 100 people without a problem.
4. It prepared me for life more than any class.
In life you are constantly going to be thrown into situations you were not prepared for. Being in a sorority helped me prepare for that. You never knew when something might to wrong, or go extremely well. You have to take everything as it comes and try not to take it personally. Of course I don't always succeed with that one, just because of my personality. Life will not always be kind, but you should always try your best to remember that it's not the messenger's fault.
There may only be four items on this list, but those four items contained an infinite number of possibilities in my time with them. I don't regret one thing about it.
I do, however, feel sad for the position that it's in now. Due to circumstances no one saw coming, as a community we had a setback at the end of last spring. Hazing allegations were brought up, and some of them were found to be accurate. I know that it takes several years for organizations to recover from that, if it happens at all.
This is one of the things that I feel like we should all share responsibility for. I'm sorry that it happened. But I feel that maybe we needed a reminder that we had to be kept in check. No matter how old the organization is or how many members you have, you are no better than the rest.
