I transferred schools at the end of my sophomore year. My old school, Florida Southern College, was too small for me. I thought that was what I wanted when I first started applying for colleges. I thought that the big state school life just wasn’t for me. But when I first went to Florida Southern, I started noticing some things.
It was September 2012, and I was a member of the lacrosse team for the first year there. Immediately, I was welcomed in as a part of the family, as most are when they join a sports team, and for that, I am very thankful. However, at a school with roughly under 3,000 students, it was all getting way too familiar, way too soon. So I decided I should branch out to a different world apart from collegiate athletics.
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This is where I began the fraternity stage of my life. So in my first year at Florida Southern, I ended up joining Pi Kappa Alpha (commonly known as PIKE). I met some great guys that really got me into the whole Greek life system. I was fully immersed, but now in two distinctly different worlds, collegiate athletics and greek life. Greek life was nothing like I had ever experienced before. My fraternity was special to me because, well, it was a group of guys that I could bond with while just being guys. Doing things that we all thought were fun, goofing around with each other, and that is the main draw of a fraternity anyway, right?
I started to notice a change in myself in the fall at the start of my third and final semester at Florida Southern. When in my fraternity, of course I still felt that sense of brotherhood. We were doing great things, philanthropy wise, and on campus as we stood out amongst other fraternities. And that right there, is when I noticed the me I did not like…
I am all for philanthropy, striving to achieve excellence in every aspect of my life, helping the community in any way possible, but I am not for it when the main basis is for brownie points. More and more I saw myself and my brothers fighting about things that were unnecessary. From how to create the best rush events, or best T-shirts, or best parties, or who gets the most girls, it was all just one big competition for popularity.
So I ended up leaving Florida Southern that semester. I took a semester off, and decided to make the trip, flying to Arizona to attend Arizona State University in the fall of 2014. Immediately, I had the decision presented to me as I met the Pikes at ASU. I met a few of them, went to there parties. I met a bunch of other fraternities as well. I ended up realizing exactly what I had realized before. I needed something besides a brotherhood.
This year, I ended up joining the Arizona State Outdoors Club (AOC). The AOC immediately welcomed me in, and I started going on some hiking trips with them. The change was immediate, and I knew at this point that I had found what I was looking for.
I am now a part of a group of individuals, men and women who all are interested in bonding over a shared experience, our connection with nature and the great outdoors. Like I said before, the main point of a fraternity is to be a group of guys that I could bond with while just being guys. Doing things that we all thought were fun, goofing around with each other. But when you are fully immersed in that Greek system, you start to lose that sense of guys just being guys.
The main difference between the club and the fraternity is the pressure. This is why I have chosen to put the fraternity life behind me. The pressure to compete with other individuals, other fraternities and sororities for popularity. I realized at ASU, now that I am not in a fraternity, that I have many friends in different fraternities and many that are not, and that feels amazing to me. I can’t imagine going back to being as restricted for events and outings as I was in the Greek system. Not being able to bring my buddies to an awesome party because they weren’t pikes. That hurts, and it changes your whole way of thinking into a very centralized, systematic way of going about the college experience.
Now that I have chosen the club life at ASU, I am fully immersed and I love every minute of it. Men and women of all different sorts, all together for something greater, our passion. Something more than just a T-shirt club that goes under one name and parties together. It’s more than that because I love the activities I am doing, and the friends I make are a benefit that came along with it, not the other way around.
All in all, just take a look at yourself sometimes and make sure you’re happy.
