Recruitment is the most exciting, exhilarating, and exhausting week in a sorority girl’s life. You have the opportunity to welcome new women into your amazing sisterhood and show them what it means to be in a sorority. Having been through recruitment on both sides, both coming into a sorority and welcoming other women into mine, this is my first year seeing recruitment from the outside looking in. I’ve graduated. I’m no longer part of recruitment. I’m alumna.

I miss walking around campus and listening to women talk about which sorority they want to join and how excited they are for recruitment to begin. I miss teaching others about my philanthropy. I miss how special the preference round would always make me feel. I miss dancing with my new sisters on bid day. I even miss the long workshops and practice rounds in preparation for recruitment.

Although it’s hard to miss out on welcoming new women into my sorority, it’s given me the opportunity to look back and appreciate what my sorority has given me. It gave me the opportunity to grow life-long relationships with women who share the same values as me. It gave me leadership opportunities that gave me the experience I needed to get my first job. It gave me unconditional love and a support system that I can always depend on. And it gave me the confidence to know that I would succeed in life after college.

So appreciate the sleepless nights and early mornings. Value the long weekend spent with your sisters. Embrace the hoarse voice you have from chanting loudly. Because you’ll miss it when it’s over.