Greek Life: Real Life?

When I thought about joining a sorority back in high school, the answer was easy. My mother’s family is Greek, and their desserts are fantastic. Really, I thought; who needs hazing and drama. I’m Greek enough.

I spent my first year at St. Lawrence unaware Greek life here existed. Like most First-Years, my First-Year Program (FYP) classmates lived on my floor and became a second family; my swim team, a third. Occasionally I’d hear a string of exclusive-sounding Greek letters, and I paid them little attention. When I received invitations to spring cookouts with each of the four sororities on campus I saw the events as just another fun St. Lawrence activity, another thing my roommate and I felt we should ‘just try.’

I walked up to that first cookout, and I was stunned: I found a group of girls, dressed up not for boys but for each other, mingling over burgers and watermelon at this exquisite house so opposite my beige 10’ by 15’ dorm room. Do people really live here? I asked, as I toured each house again my sophomore fall, admiring collages of bright-eyed ‘sisters’ between formal composite pictures lining cozy halls.

College makes relationships more real, and more complicated: building girl friendships could fall second to meeting boys and dancing downtown Saturday nights, I learned early, if I wasn’t careful. While I had found families in my FYP and athletic team, I missed the giggling camaraderie of my all-girls high school. So I took a chance on Greek life. Or, rather, Greek life took a chance on me.

My challenge since accepting a ‘bid’ early on a sophomore Saturday has been in finding where a sorority and real life intersect. A lot of Greek life doesn’t seem like real life, at least in Kappa Delta Sigma, a local sorority I now call home. We share wakeup duties, tapping shoulders to get each other up for class. We read poetry at ceremonies; we circulate signups for face-painting and hair-tie-selling events; we hire boys to wash our dishes and mop the glitter from the corners of our house.

But a lot of what I’m learning in a sorority gives me insight into how life after college should work. We help each other with homework and résumés. We share food, living spaces and chores, learning to respect our furniture and each other. We even have a mediation system to sort out miscommunication—an inevitable challenge, living with 25 college girls. The financial commitment, which my campus jobs easily cover, makes Greek life more serious, too: more important and more real.

Photo taken by Molly Patterson '12

Greek life places importance on formal relationships as life becomes less formal, I’ve found. It teaches us the lasting value in contracts, those archaic things that seem so meaningless when penned with an electric signature. Living in a sorority house, specifically, gives us young women a place of which we are fully in control, where we never have to depend on boys or others to have a good time.

And so Greek life has won me over. What I embarked on so tepidly because of unfounded rumors has become a place and institution I greatly respect, as much for the careful way in which we recruit and induct new members as for the girls who are now my sisters, always around to lend a hand and a hug. I respect the way we encourage each other to seek leadership spots on campus; to volunteer at every event possible, and to generally make St. Lawrence a better place.