At the beginning of this semester, I decided to rush for a sorority. Being an international student, I felt that this would be a great opportunity to meet new people and make friends. I decided to rush for the Panhellenic sororities first. With no intention to offend anybody, I have to say the Panhellenic sororities did not seem to be the right place for me, and hence, I decided to back out.
In the beginning of September, I was walking across Talley Student Union when I bumped into the table of Omega Phi Alpha, the national service sorority, and my current sorority. Founded in 1967 in Bowling Green, Ohio, this sorority focuses mainly on friendship, leadership, and service as its cardinal principles.
Having a background of service myself, I felt that this would be a great way for me to continue with service in college and make friends and meet new people. I decided to rush for this sorority and got a bid.
The experience ever since has been nothing but amazing.
Starting from Bid Day where we officially got inducted as pledges to the service events that we have to attend to fulfill our service requirements, everything has been a great experience.
There have been many events that I was a part of, events such as SAS Breast Cancer Awareness, a pancake dinner for Dance Marathon, a haunted forest, volunteering with habitat for humanity, baking bread for a local charity, Operation Christmas Child, passing out encouraging notes to the university community, etc.
The ones that I personally enjoyed the most have to be when we assisted a past professor of NC State to put up a haunted forest for children on Halloween, when we sent out boxes to young children in developing countries, and when we volunteered with Habitat for Humanity.
At the haunted forest we helped build, I was one of the forest guides who took the kids around the forest to show them the different scares we had arranged for them. Having an almost teenage younger sister myself, it was fun to see the kids act as if they knew what was coming and then actually get scared of my friends who were putting up the act.
At habitat for humanity, it was super fun to paint the rooms and then drill doors and hinges for the rooms. Being from India where we have labor for almost everything, it was a great experience to build parts of a house on my own.
As part of the pledging process, apart from the service hours, we are also expected to interview the active sisters and take the national test. While I loved getting to know all the sisters and talking to them, the quizzes, on the other hand, were the scariest part of the process. I was required to know all the details and score at least an 85 on each quiz.
After these quizzes, we were then prepared to take the national test. As terrified as I was of doing horribly and not being able to make it, I got a 98 on the quiz, which honestly was the best information I could have gotten.
Another aspect that was really fun and exciting was the big-little reveal. As part of the sorority, we are required to have a big sister and a family of our own and this was an exceptional experience for me. Be it getting weekly gifts and constant anonymous emails from my big, or the fact that I was the only person who had absolutely no idea of who her big was, it was amazing to unwrap my “Big Present” and finally meet my big after a month of anonymous correspondence.
I also got the opportunity to be a part of the photoshoot a few weeks ago and it was surely an experience that I would never forget!
After successfully finishing my pledging process, I can proudly state that I am glad that I decided to rush for Omega Phi Alpha and am glad I am a part of this sisterhood.
