“Society, brotherhood, remembrance”

these are the pillars of my fraternity. My name is Brian Dolores in the land of the king cobra I am Brother Resinosa but first, let's start from the beginning.

I first came to Stockton university not too long ago. It was fall 2019 that past summer was one of my favorites. I partied, worked, lived, and enjoyed the past three months of freedom from deadlines, school, pressure, silly petty high school drama, and was looking forward to what college had to offer. New people, environment, experiences I'm one of those people who don't really like school environments I struggle a lot with sitting still and paying attention or not getting bored in class. Probably why I only graduated with a 3.4 GPA instead of a 4.0. But it was bittersweet. I was saying so long to a lot of friends of mine who were off to different parts of the country to do what they want, and I kinda had some doubts about going to college. My current plan is to eventually become a police officer or in some career where I can help people. However, as I sit down and write this week's piece I have had some doubts to as if this is something I still want to do. That's a piece for another day for today's piece ill be retelling the story of how I pledged and crossed into my fraternity.

It was very late August when I first moved in.

I was excited to get into my dorm and ready to meet the other guys on my floor (Stockton separated floors by gender) and from the get-go, I didn't vibe with most of the people on my floor. Everyone was nice but not the type of people I wouldn't hang out with. And most people I saw at Stockton are local heads who already have established friend groups. That's one of the downsides of me going to Stockton I committed in the last two weeks of April there have been group chats, and meet-ups going on in the summer and I wasn't a part of it. Stockton is also a relatively small university compared to places such as Rutgers or Penn state so a majority of students are commuters or local kids who went to the same public schools so they are lifelong friends.

I felt alone and ostracized.

I didn't want to join someones else group for fear of being awkward and I felt a little jealousy seeing some of my friends from home already clicking with their roommates and classmates and having fun. I was not having fun. I was bored and I got along with my classmates but it was just cordial. And throughout the fall semester, I just kept to myself and just worked out, studied, and was bored and unhappy. But then something changed. Stockton has what we called a get-involved fair. it s during the beginning of the semester when different clubs, organizations, and greek life entities set up tables and easily recruit people and showcase who they are. I decided to go just to get involved and to see what was out there. I found a jiu-jitsu club I joined and left after two meetings because the club was poorly run and just not fun. One thing you should all know is that in high school I kinda hung out with everyone. I talked to most people, most people knew me and I would not consider me popular, I was a mix of emo, athlete, loner, and some other things that made me a diverse individual. But I remember I said I would never join greek life. But that one day in September 2019 altered my course in life. I just got out of class and was passing by the fraternity tables, lots of brothers were dressed up behind their letters and table of trophies and flags and whatever memorabilia they had, and then I heard a voice

" hey you"

"Who me?"

"Yea you come over here, my guy"

"Hey, kid you ever thought about joining a fraternity?"

"Ehh kinda not really sure about it"

"I'm AJ Camacho and I'm a brother of Sigma Beta Rho Fraternity Inc, what's your name?"

"I'm brian "

"Well Brian if you're interested you should fill this form up, there's no commitment pop out"

And that moment changed everything.

That was the dialogue I exchanged between me and AJ. I signed up on that form and AJ got my number and started hitting me up for rush events and other hang-out sessions. AJ at the time was the rush chair for sigrho he started a campaign to be more personal with potential new members and personally reached out to as many people as he could, guess you could say it was fate. AJ introduced me to other brothers of the chapters who eventually became my brothers a few months later. The one thing that I liked about sighro is how diverse and small it is. Sigma Beta Rho fraternity inc is a multicultural based fraternity based upon the principles of society, brotherhood, and remembrance. They were established nationally in 1996 at the University of Pennsylvania. But we have only been at Stockton university since 2015. The way my fraternity carries itself is different from that of other fraternities. We are small we've only been around since 1996 and so we aren't up there in terms of clout like pi kappa alpha or kappa sigma. But honestly, none of that matters. And so these pillars have a lot of value and mean a lot to me. And that's why I pledged yes a fraternity has fun, you all know what that means, but mine also gave me an opportunity to grow and learn. I was a shy introverted kid, I still am but I've gotten more confident I've gained something to be responsible for I've got to know guys who are my brothers and I guess sigrho gave me something to live for. It is not by any means the only thing I care about, but it's up there, and although my future from this point is uncertain, I can look back and say that joining was worth it, greek life gets a lot of flak, some of its real some myths, but it's not all like that. There is a fine line between having fun and doing well at school which is the number one reason why people go to university to get a degree and then find a job. But greek like it adds something and gives to people a purpose and opportunity. It's not for everyone and there are some problems with greek life but multicultural orgs such as my own I feel will be on the rise and possibly have an impact on their respective campus, as long as they put in the work. Which thankfully to the men I met have helped me try to help myself. And so my message is this greek life is more than just fun, its work and it pays off, don't be afraid of a risk failure can happen but it is a good teacher and the harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph.