Being in a sorority is one of the things I enjoy the most about being in college, but at the same time is one of the things I talk about the least. If you meet and get to know me, I will not strike you as the first person who comes to mind when thinking about a "typical sorority girl."

I mean, when I came home at Thanksgiving during my freshman year, I ran into a high school classmate and when we politely asked how our first months at college had been and the matter came up that I had joined a sorority, she was quite shocked and surprised.

I am fine with this reaction and in fact I appreciate when someone is surprised by the fact that I chose to join I sorority. I appreciate it because I feel like it shows how the stereotypes around sororities and who joins them are dissolving and the perceptions of sorority life are evolving. Because truthfully, I did not join a sorority because I liked what I saw when sororities were portrayed in movies, TV, magazines, and other forms of media. In fact, those portrayals and stereotypes are still things that do not appeal to me and I do not want to be associated with those stereotypes.

I joined a sorority because I went to an all-girls high school and during my four years of high school, I feel in love with having a strong, empowering, and inspiring group of young women around all the time. So, since I had to move on from high school, I wanted to have something similar to the community I had in those four years when I went to college. Now, I am thankful to have found a group of women who create a community that closely resembles what I had during high school.

It is not exactly the same, but having familiar faces and friends in class, being able to be your authentic self, having open and honest conversations, and having fun doing simple things like cooking dinner or studying together are all things I loved about the relationships and community I had in high school and the ones I have now in my sorority.

To me, it is interesting to observe and think about how the membership of sororities are changing right now. Recently, I came across an article published in 2016 by The New York Times titled “When a Feminist Pledges a Sorority” and reading it, I related to everything that was discussed.

The article brought up how for so long, it has seemed as if sororities were elitist organizations, only meant for women who were looking for invites to parties and the criteria for getting a bid from a sorority was based on your outward appearance. But as a quote from the article says so well is that, “What I would love to think is that it’s not your mother’s sorority any more. That it has evolved.”

While each chapter of each different sorority on each university or college campus is going to have a different community and experience, for me this quote very much embodies the transformation sororities and their membership are now undergoing.

Although it may sound like a cliché, at my university, we put emphasis on “values-based recruiting.” This means that in the process of preparing for recruitment of new members, as a chapter we get together and consider the values of the current membership in order to seek out those same values in potential new members as our chapter expands.

So, for our chapter, it is more important for us to find women who look like us on the inside based on what is important to them and the values they uphold, instead of what shoes a woman is wearing, how much make-up she has on, or the way she has styled her hair.

I hope going forward in years to come, the rest of America, parents, young women, young men, and university administrators, can see sororities as empowering, strong, and safe communities for women to find a place where they feel as if they belong at a time of immense transition in their lives. Right now, I will work to define my chapter’s letters based on how I hold myself and the activities I am involved in, instead of letting my letters define me.