As much as I love Greek Life, I feel as though it unjustly puts us in a bubble for college. It's a pretty awesome bubble, with crazy parties every weekend, but I believe it has the tendency to narrow our perspective on life. The IFC and Panhel do a great job of instilling cultural aspects into the system, through things like Greek Sing, and programming events with highly-touted guest speakers. However, it's up to us to make a name for ourselves and shed positive light on the Greek community.

A lot of students and community members outside of the Greek system have a distorted perception of what Greeks are about. They associate us with being immature, stuck-up alcoholics who are out of touch with the rest of campus. As much as they are judgmental and tend to make sweeping generalizations, we also need to do our part in killing this stereotype. 

The problem is, it's not always seen as "cool" to be a part of organizations outside of Greek Life, or attend cultural events on campus. Why we hold our own prejudices against people who go against the conventional is beyond me. Do you really want to be another carbon-copy frat guy or sorority girl? We get it: you're in Greek Life and like to party. But have you ever thought about there being a little more to college than dedicating all your free time to making sure you have the perfect social schedule? Maybe, but for a lot of you, probably not.

The governing bodies of Greek Life do everything they can to promote a positive image, but ultimately we ourselves need to do a better job of portraying a favorable impression. This doesn't mean we need to change our lifestyle; we just need to pursue our interests and attend events that are outside Greek Life, but a part of the Penn State community. 

Think about all the flyers you see on the bulletin boards in the Forum, everything from club advertisements to applications for Penn State Learning tutors, yet we don’t even spare more than a few seconds to check them out most of the time. Or maybe you know people who are in the Thespians and have a show coming up, but you haven’t made a conscious effort to attend one before. Besides Theater 100 online (if you even consider that to be a cultural experience, since everyone cheats on the tests anyways) I imagine you haven’t been exposed much to the performing arts at college. 

Or maybe you’re even a guy like me who really enjoys writing, but are too worried about being judged by other guys in Greek Life to join the Odyssey because it’s not very “bro”. Well, if you haven’t realized this yet, once college is over, nobody is going to care about your campus reputation. The world is too big - heck, Penn State is even too big - for us to be so narrow-minded, when there are a multitude of opportunities for us to expand our cultural horizons and try out new things. And I understand that a lot of people have zero interest in any of the things I just listed, and feel like this article is pointless. I’m not telling you how to live your life, but to just be aware of what’s out there, so that when you look back on college, you don’t have any regrets about how you spent your time.     

There’s a lot of benefit to us getting involved in campus life other than becoming more well-rounded people. When there are a lot of Greeks in attendance at sporting events like women’s basketball or men’s soccer, the Penn State community does notice and care that we are there. It shows that we’re actually multi-faceted students who are connected to the rest of the community. 

Whether or not we notice a lot of interaction taking place between the university and Greek Life, they are closely watching over us. And as much as we love the social aspect of being Greek, campus involvement is paramount to how we are perceived by society. Fraternities run into trouble with borough violations quite often, and that in itself doesn’t do much in helping us to build the community's and university’s faith in us. 

Philanthropy events, seeing students in Greek Life as the leaders of prominent clubs, or things as simple as joining a THON committee show society that there’s way more to our culture than getting drunk on a weekly basis. And when we are on good terms with the community, they’re going to be more accepting and tolerant of our culture. Even if you don’t necessarily want to get involved with other aspects of Penn State, think about what it could mean for the reputation of your organization.      

I know this seems like another lecture, and you might just ignore all the suggestions I gave. I mean, who am I - a junior majoring in math - to be giving advice on how you should be living your life in college? You don’t have to adhere to any of this, and if you made it to this sentence, I’m incredibly thankful, but just know that the reason why I write to you is to help you learn from the mistakes that I've made.