I’m going to be honest here — I was terrified that I wouldn’t do well in college. I had always been a “gifted” kid, an “honors” kid, but as I finished high school, I found it so hard to sit down and do my work in order to get good grades. I was consumed by anxiety that told me that any work I did wasn’t enough. It was never enough. So I figured, why bother?

College seemed like the perfect place for me to slip through the cracks. I couldn’t imagine how I would manage all these responsibilities if I had never managed to juggle the few I had in high school. And I would start off college without a single friend in a huge school. I was sure I would end up dropping out.

To my frustration, my sister insisted that I participate in sorority recruitment. On one hand, it was a great chance to make new friends. On the other hand, it seemed like another distraction from my real focus: school. The whole thing pretty much passed in a blur, and though my family told me I could drop out of rush at any time if it wasn’t right for me, I ended up joining my sister’s sorority. At the very least, I figured my sister would be there to look out for me. I was in for a surprise.

To start us all off, my sorority asked us to do study hours until we were initiated. Basically, we could be in the house, a library, or Starbucks, but we had to dedicate that much time to studying. I ended up spending a lot of time in the house, but I will admit that I maybe didn’t spend all that time studying. I made a point to always sit with the girls in my “Alpha class” (the ones who rushed at the same time as me) and talk to them. Despite trying to pretend like I was cool, I waited for someone to look at me funny or to make it clear we weren’t friends. It didn’t happen. In fact, it seemed like these girls were just as desperate to make friends as I was.

And don’t get me wrong; I studied and did my homework. My newfound friends in my sorority and my roommates made sure of that. They didn’t have to “mom” me. There was just a sense of comradery as we talked about classes and worked alongside each other on homework. I need to maintain my GPA above three different levels: one to stay in my sorority, one to stay in the Honors college, and one to keep my scholarship. Being in a sorority made keeping my GPA up surprisingly easy, and it was never a distraction from my academics.

But there was a really amazing attitude in my sorority that I never expected. I think the study hours and GPA requirements give the wrong impression. No girl in this sorority would be mad at me if I failed. No one would be mad if I wasn’t perfect. It was okay to just be okay. But my sorority would also hang banners if I did do something really great. So I joined clubs, became involved, and tried to be worthy of wearing those letters — those letters that mean just being proud of your sisters no matter what. Their pride drives me to get involved and get good grades because being worthy of their pride goes beyond four years. I want to be worth bragging about for a long time.

Now, I have a close group of friends, but one of my favorite things I have because of my sorority is my Alpha class GroupMe. It’s a place where a hundred girls trade clothes, tell crazy stories about their day, share memes, and generally just get to be weird together. That’s a place for us, and we try to keep it both fun and honest. Throughout the day, sometimes that’s the place you turn to for a little support, and when I see the way girls uplift each other, I know I’m in exactly the right place.