There are many stigmas surrounding the Greek community all over the country due to the media's portrayals of sorority girls being shallow and rude and the fraternity men being crazy partiers with no lack or care for their academics. These stigmas and stereotypes are really easy to believe if you don’t fully understand what goes on within the community of these men and women. Though I am unsure of how the fraternities work, I can vouch for the sororities.

Before I joined a house (informally, in the spring of my freshman year) I was definitely one of those people that believed in all of the stereotypes. Not necessarily the level of extreme that the media chose to illustrate it as, however, I did believe that sorority girls were rich, stuck up, shallow, and undermining characters that I had no desire to be around.

One of my friends that I had met fall semester freshman year was in Alpha Delta Pi and she texted me and my roommate one day asking us to come to an informal recruitment event held at her house. I was super skeptical because I didn’t understand sorority life and up until this point I truly believed that I wasn’t one of “those” girls. I decided to take a leap of faith, and by that I mean my roommate begged me to go. I went to the party with a closed mind. The thing is, the second I got there everything I believed before went out the door. I was met with some of the nicest girls and I wasn’t asked ridiculous questions that made me feel like I was being interviewed and scrutinized for what I said. It felt like they were just trying to bond and that was surprisingly pleasant.

After receiving a bid to the house I was still unsure of if I wanted to join purely based on my paranoia that everyone was just acting nice for the sake of gaining pledges. Again, I took another chance and accepted the bid. To this day I couldn’t be more thrilled with my decision.

These sorority women that I have been blessed to call my sisters are possibly the best thing that could have happened to me. They aren’t shallow, or rude, or any of the negative representations that have surrounded the community. Since joining the house my grades have improved and, quite frankly, so has my social life.

I could pull out all the statistics and tell you that those in the Greek community have higher grades than those that aren't a part of the community and that members of the Greek community are more likely to graduate or get a job right after college, but those are just analytics and facts that you can Google. What I want people to know is that the Greek community is a close-knit group of people who are smart, philanthropic, and are genuine people that enjoy wearing our letters loud and proud.

Honestly, I can’t promise that these depictions of the Greek community will ever go away, but I want everyone to have an open mind about it. You can say that you aren’t a sorority girl all you want, but I said the same thing and here I am.

My story of why I joined the house is not very exciting as you've already read, but I can list several reasons why I have stayed and will continue to stay. I choose to remain in sorority life because when I'm having a bad day I know I have sisters that will listen to me vent. I choose to stay because I know come finals week I have a bunch of girls willing to make a midnight Dutch run with me. I choose to stay because I can be real with my sisters and know that I won't be ridiculed and judged for it.

I can't tell you that you're going to be extremely close with every single girl in your house because that's just impractical when there are over 100 girls per chapter. Think of it like your family, you aren't going to get along with everyone all the time, but you know that they're going to have your back.

Forget what you think a typical sorority girl looks like, because the truth is every single sorority girl I have met has their own quirks and unique personalities, yes most of us enjoy wearing our letters, and most of us don’t mind dressing up now and then, but personality wise, there are no two girls exactly alike.

If you were thinking about joining a sorority, whether during spring informal or during formal in the fall, then I say take a leap of faith like I did and. It could change your life for the better.