Coming home for summer vacation after my freshman year, I was as SRAT (sorority) as they came. I proudly wore my letters everywhere I went, told all my friends about my totally awesome, perfect, party-animal big, and most of my stories started with, “This one time at my brother frat's…”
While I thought Greek life was the be-all, end-all, my friends from home didn’t agree. They thought my obsession with my new Greek family was bizarre and were convinced that when graduation rolled around, the only impressive thing on my resume would be that I was able to out-chug all of my pledge sisters. However, I’ve actually realized that us sorority girls have the upper hand in the real world.
Work hard, play harder.
If being a sorority girl has taught me anything, it’s how to work hard, but play harder. I’ve noticed that sorority girls are often labeled as dumb, or stupid. However, contrary to popular belief, you actually have to maintain a certain GPA to maintain your standing as a sister. Frat-crawling till the early hours of the morning each weekend meant spending my days in the library alone on the silent floor making some serious progress on my term papers, projects, and what seemed like endless reading assignments. Lots of hard work deserves a lot of fun. After all, I wasn’t paying hundreds of dollars in dues to watch my sisters drink my keg money every weekend.
Talking to anyone about anything.
You know that saying, “The early bird gets the worm." Well, that’s actually false. It should be “The personable person gets the worm.” And by worm, I mean the job, promotion or -- insert just about anything awesome here. And I like to think that us sorority girls get the worm. Every. Single. Time. We have personality, we have pizzazz, and if you’re anything like me, you’re probably as sassy as they come.
Walking into rooms and talking to anyone about anything is super easy for me, it wasn’t always a strong suit of mine. However, being a sister meant I had to do my fair share of rushing potential new members. This meant being extra mindful of my facial expressions, answering questions in an appropriate matter -- even the weird ones (no, you don’t have to be slutty to be in a sorority. Is it really that much of a surprise?) -- and, arguably, the most important was being able to actively engage those quiet people who need a little help warming up to a new group of people. So I guess I have the dreaded rush process to thank for my personable tendencies. I can talk to anyone from that cute boy at the bar, to my boss, to my best friend’s grandmother about anything, anytime, anywhere. While people don’t like to admit it, us people with the award winning personalities go far. Sometimes even farther than those people with the 4.0s.
Playing nice.
Believe it or not, you won’t always like everyone you meet. And everyone you meet won’t always like you. It might be a weird roommate, it might be your boyfriend’s mom, or it may even be your boss. Regardless of who it is, you and this other person just don’t see eye to eye, and more often than not you both bump heads. But because you’re a broke 20-something, you need your weird roommate who listens to scary sounding music. Because whether you like it or not, you couldn’t pay your ridiculously overpriced studio apartment’s rent without her.
While your boyfriend’s mom can be a total critic of your life, and ask uncalled for questions, you really like her son, so putting up with her is basically a necessity if you see a future together. And, well, your boss is your boss. He calls the shots and he writes the checks, the job he gave you is funding your excessive weekend bar tabs and online shopping addiction. So he or she may suck, but staying in his or her good graces is rather imperative.
This is where us sorority girls have the upper hand. While you loved your sorority, I guarantee there was, at least, one other person somewhere in the Greek life community that you weren’t particularly fond of (probably more, if we’re being honest here, ladies.) But instead of hating life and letting that person ruin your fun, you learned how to play nice. Some of these people might not even realize that you don’t like them, and that’s because us sorority girls are experts when it comes to playing nice. Call it what you want, it’s not being fake, and it’s not kissing someone’s ass, it’s simply making the best of an unpleasant, but necessary, relationship.
So the next time someone tells you that being a sorority girl gets you nowhere, just remember, those thirsty Thursdays, early morning charity events, and rush lunches actually did make a difference in your life. They made you stand out, in all the best ways possible.
