Joining a fraternity will lead to the best four to seven years of your undergrad career; any self-respecting fraternity man will attest to that. The overall experience of being in a fraternity is unparalleled. You’ll grow as a man yet always have an air of being a degenerate about you. It's a strange and wonderful contradiction. College changes you, everybody knows that, but being in a fraternity comes with its own cycle of changes. Everybody goes through these phases, whether they want to admit it or not. Some guys will cycle through these changes quicker than others; just make sure you don’t get stuck in one stage. 

Overly Eager Rushee
You’re an eager little freshman, just embarking on what will become your five year journey to graduation. You know you want to rush a fraternity on campus, you’ve known since your freshman year of high school. You’ve read all the TFM articles and you’re more than ready to join the top house. You get that generic mass text all rush chairs send out and your little heart flutters with excitement. You jump at the first invitation you get to some big party (or at least that’s what your text says). You show up and decide immediately this is the house you’re going with. You spend the night telling actives how awesome you were at beer pong in high school and that you hold the kegstand school record with a whopping 10 seconds. They pretend that’s all super interesting and introduce you to other actives in the chapter. You attend every party they have that week, telling the other rushees how “tight you are with the recruitment chair.” Formal rush eventually starts and you know the names of every active in the chapter. You’re excited for the week to be over so you can officially pick up your bid and become a pledge for the most perfect chapter on campus.     

Beaten Down Pledge
Rush ends and you’re now a pledge for your dream house; all of your hopes and dreams have come true. But you notice some minor differences: the actives aren't quite as polite and there’s less alcohol and girls being tossed in your direction. You're okay with it though because TFM outlined basic pledgeship for you. You start off full of excitement and even run for Pledge Class President. Your enthusiasm steady starts to dwindle as the semester goes on. Midterms are a lot tougher than any test you ever took in high school and the actives are becoming increasingly less willing to deal with your dumb freshman mistakes. You wear yourself out trying to keep your pledge class together and trying to please every active. Sleep deprivation and McDonald’s for every meal become very real things in your life. It’ll all be okay, it’s only for a semester.      

Frat Star J.I. (Just Initiate) 
You made it through pledgeship and your first semester of college. How do you celebrate a GPA that’s barely acceptable by university standards and just being initiated? Bro shopping trip to Brooks Brothers, of course! You’re ready to show everybody on campus that you can “frat” with the best of them. You make sure you have a plethora of pastel colored pants and polos in your closet for the start of spring semester. How else would everybody know fratty you are? Do you really need that $100 baby blue colored button down that would look super fratty with your salmon colored slacks? Probably not. What you don’t realize is that you’re still a freshman and nobody likes “that guy” on campus. Tone it down a bit, bud.

Enthusiastic Active 
Sophomore year approaches and your GPA looks a lot like your bank account at the end of freshman year: sad and almost nonexistent. You spent the second semester of your freshman year looking like an Easter egg and telling the pledges that your pledge class was the best. Hopefully you took time over summer to mature a little bit and lost the pastel pants. You’re ready for some responsibility within the chapter and want to help make it better. You attend every meeting you can and run for an officer position. You work hard on recruitment and spreading good words about your chapter on campus. You become so involved in the chapter that your physical health takes a backseat and you work just hard enough in class to maintain “average” status.  

Fifth-Seventh Year Senior
Your sophomore, junior and even first senior years have all flown by. Four years of neglecting your physical health have left you sporting the perfect “dad bod.” Your enthusiastic drive has dwindled over the years and you become increasingly more apathetic towards the chapter. You make rare and sporadic appearances at any event that doesn’t include an abundance of free booze. Your closet and overall appearance resembles that of a middle-aged father; riddled with Hawaiian shirts, sorority date party shirts with dates printed on them that show current freshman you're a generation ahead of them and your faithful pair of tennis shoes. Your core group of friends all graduated on time but you took a little more time deciding between being an attorney, doctor or high school football coach. You’ve dabbled in just about every major your university has to offer and scraped by in all of them. You regale the pledges with tales of your younger years and most stories start with, “Back in my day...” You’re viewed more like a dad of the chapter by the younger guys and this doesn’t really faze you. Graduation is creeping up and you’re still trying to decide on a definite major to claim.      

Alumnus 
You finally make your way out of college and become an established alumnus for your chapter. The “real world” has made you more dad-like than you were you sixth year of college. Who knew that was possible? You donate a little cash whenever you can and occasionally make it back for a game. You teach the pledges the drinking songs and chants you knew as an undergrad. They call you “sir” but it isn’t out fear of being yelled at, it’s because you’re now that old guy. Welcome to the real world.