Take It From A Bid Day Dropout, A Sorority Isn't Required For A Memorable College Experience

My freshman year at Arizona State University, I lived in the dorms away from the main campus. Even though this bothered me, I still had no interest in joining Greek Life.

Although I did not go through Recruitment that year, I felt like I lived through it. Many of my friends received a bid from their dream houses and others were devastated with the outcome they received.

I did not understand why my friends reacted this way as Greek Life has never been of interest to me. This is something they did not understand especially since ASU is considered to be such a big "party" school.

Lady Bird was about my high school!Giphy

The reason Recruitment was never of interest to me was because I have always gone to smaller schools that modeled the same atmosphere as Greek life. From kindergarten eighth grade, I was in the same class with the same 30 students. I continued my education at an all-girls Catholic high-school also known as the high school Lady Bird is about.

There were under 200 girls in my class and we were a private college preparatory school. With this being said, you can imagine the cattiness and drama that comes with going to a school with only girls for four years. Not to mention wealth, boys, and education were all competitory subjects.

Once I started college, I didn't want anything to do with this sort of community. There was constantly the pressure from my friends to join as well, but I learned it was all for superficial reasons.

Lauren Hernandez

With the pressure, I felt like I was missing out on something, so my sophomore year I moved to the main campus and decided to give recruitment a try.

Throughout the process, I tried to convince myself I was loving it because that's what you're told to feel. In reality, I was far from loving it and was trying to please my friends.

Thinking back on it, I wasted so much time and money on outfits, spray tans, Ubers, and more. The sad part about that for me was getting all these services done that I would never usually do. I did it just to look "the right way" for recruitment.

Once bid day came, I realized I was not even excited about my outcome. I had two really good houses on my preference day, which is every girl's dream, but I still did not feel that connection. I decided to drop from the house that I got because I did not think I was very much like the girls nor did I have similar interests.

Lauren Hernandez

I personally believe I would have felt this way in any house because throughout the whole process I never talked about things I actually liked and was constantly stressed about the dues aspect of Greek life.

I stand by the decision I made because it would have only added stress to my school experience especially when it wasn't of importance to me. I would have also wasted a lot of money in the sorority dues.

If you live, breath, and die sorority life, I think it is something you will love, but if you are skeptical and only going through rush because your friends want you to, I would evaluate the pros and cons.

Just remember, just because you are not in Greek life doesn't mean you won't have a social life. I can guarantee you, you will be friends with people in Greek life and outside it, you will have a social life and go to many parties, and you'll probably end up going to a social!