The Pros and Cons to Greek Life Jun 27 '00    Write an essay on this topic. Tweet Its hard to wrie an opinion on Greek life offering advice, because Greek systems can vary so widely between different schools, and even at a given campus, within different houses. I will admit that I was greek at my school. There were times when I loved being greek, and loved my house and my brotherhood. Yet there were other times when I loathed the place and tried to stay away from my house as often as I could. I went to a college that is dominated by Greek life. Roughly 60% of the campus is greek. Being that the Bucknell U is located in a small town in central PA that offers little excitement, the social life at Bucknell would often revolve around the fraternities. There were pros and cons to this. Obvious cons are the stratification of the school (greeks vs. non-greeks) and even stratification within the greek system. Bucknell did not do a very good job of easing problems between greeks and non-greeks. For example, mandating that all greek functions are solely for greeks created a lot of strife and separation. Within the Greek system there were the normal house rivalries. Problems with certain houses trying to steal or do certain things to other houses created problems. Especially during pledge season when pledges were often put up to dirty work. Then there were the problems with stereotypes. They existed at my school, and I imagine they exist most anywhere else. We had the jock house, the stoner house, the meathead house, the rich pretty boy house, etc... And their members were often viewed as such, at times unfairly. Within a single greek organization there are pros and cons to joining. Yes, joining does put you into an organization where you have a great opportunity to get to know a set of people very well and form lifelong friendships. Many close friends are made in the fraternity house. Being in a house also gives you opportunities that would be difficult to have elsewhere. For example, through the collective power of the number of individuals in a house, you can experience some great parties, or experience some great volunteering efforts that would be harder to do on your own. My major problem with greek like was the inflexibility. There seemed to be too many mandatory house functions that I had to attend. Chapter meetings, volunteer work, rituals, etc... Not that I minded those things at all. I did enjoy them. But they were scheduled and I would have to work the rest of my schedule around them. The other problem is that in an organization like this you almost need to be friends with everyone in the house, or at least friendly. If there are brothers you do not like, it is best to try to get over those differences for the sake of the collective good. Yes, many times I did get sick of my house. I got sick of living there and having to put up with the constant drinking, and loud music, and weird behavior. There were times when I would leave the hosue every chance I could get. But overall I am very glad that I joined. Being in that organization helped me learn about myself, about others, and about how to deal with problems and about how organizations work, which actually helped prepare me for the working world. And yes, I had a lot of fun there too.

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