I can’t be alone in this. It happens almost daily. I meet someone new, either in Greek life or not, where they bring up something regarding me being in a sorority. This is one of my biggest peeves. Just like any group or organization, each house has a stereotype, whether or not each member of that house fits the stereotype, they’re definitely still associated with it.

I would call myself an unenthusiastic member. Meaning, I do my best to not let these letters define me. I'll be honest, I joined the Greek system for the socials and networking. That’s it. I didn’t join to find a “family away from home” or to make the world a magically better place with the one philanthropic event we do each semester. To me, being apart of a sorority is a part time hobby, not my life.

This obviously is not a scholarly article you’ll find on any .org, but based on my observations, Greek life promotes exclusivity and obliviousness. By joining the Greek system, we’re automatically placed into this bubble where it's all we know. It makes branching out more difficult because people are either categorized as Greek or a “geed”, as if it’s so terrible to want to be identified as an individual. There’s a lack of diversity in the Greek system. It’s only natural to choose to associate with people that resemble oneself, but doing it in mass groups makes meeting and experiencing different types of people a challenge because it’s frighteningly easy to get consumed by this one specific group.

Personally, my interests range from finding new music, studying food and creating new recipes, to debating with anyone and everyone I know about philosophical dilemmas after joining an ethics debate team. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the idea of Greek life, I understand what it tries to promote, but I strongly believe that the sole purpose is for social reasons. The charitable acts are simply a way of gaining credibility and justifying why one joins Greek life. I can’t help but think that the competitions to become top house or putting on forced smiles at recruitment to convince the most attractive PNM’s that in order to have a successful college career they must be one of you, is just plain silly.

There's much more to life than Greek life.