I've waited to write this particular article for a while now and as we close into the recruitment season more, I think it is finally time.
I've been asked over the past two years, "why did you choose to join a sorority?" Now, people who knew me in high school knew that it was something I was always interested in. I used to watch the show "Greek" on ABC Family back in the day and I used to want to be Casey Cartwright, Zeta Beta Zeta president. I would tell my friends this and they always would come back with, "you are definitely the typical sorority girl".
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Flash forward to my freshman year of college. My roommate and I had made an awesome group of friends and as formal recruitment came closer, I debated on whether or not I should even do it. Even though it was something I had always wanted to do, I already had such a solid group of friends that I almost felt like I would be betraying them. The whole point of a sorority is to make friends and if I already had great friends, there was no point in doing it, right? Wrong.
I sit here as a junior in college preparing for my second year of recruitment. I sit here as the Vice President of Public Relations and Marketing. I sit here as someone whose life has been changed since the day I stepped into formal recruitment two years ago. At first, I wasn't super involved in it. I was a little shy and I really only went to the events I had to go to. The best part about Greek Life at UVM is that its low-key enough that it doesn't have to be your whole life. I chose to stay quiet and keep to my non-Greek affiliated friends for the most part. As the time came to choose housing for my sophomore year, I suddenly had to step up to the plate and live in our chapter house so we would meet quota. I was terrified. I didn't want to live in a house with 20 girls and I didn't want my life to change for what I thought was the worse.
Sophomore year came around and I lived with my big and our other friend in a triple styled room in the old victorian house off-campus (aka away from most of the other sophomores). Both my roommates were juniors and I started to feel very left out. I tried to hang on to the life I had my freshman year so hard. I was not ready to let go of the friends I had and the places I went. Then, I went through my first formal recruitment on the recruiting side and I realized that I wanted to be as involved as possible. Having a say in what we did was something that was suddenly very important to me. Having a say in where our chapter went was what mattered most.
I soon realized that the second I decided to fight the label my high school friends gave me as "the typical sorority girl", the second I was preventing myself from enjoying the process as much as possible. I decided that maybe I was the typical sorority girl, but the beauty about UVM Greek Life is that not everyone is going to be. We're all just women who share a passion for leading and want to be part of a group of people with a common goal. I know personally, I had always been part of a team in high school, so a sorority filled that void when I got to college.
I met my best friend in this chapter. I've made memories that I'll smile about when I'm 80. I've grown more as a person than I ever thought possible because of my sorority. I now have 100 friends who have unconditionally been there for me and vice versa. I'm not sure that there is anything like being in a sorority and I wouldn't trade my experiences, whether they were good or bad, for anything in the world. I'm excited for another year of recruitment and I am excited to see all the people whose lives will change no matter which chapter they choose to give a little of their heart to. Alpha Chi Omega has mine and she will always be my home.
#BeGreek
