During my fall 2013 semester at Cal State Long Beach, I was eager to find new ways to make friends. I knew joining a sorority was an easy route toward feeling like I belong.
Little did I know that with sorority sisterhood came financial hardship and social stressors. The truth about sorority life wouldn’t begin to unfold until about a year after becoming a member.
Unfortunately, I was too mesmerized by the initial thought of having new friends. I wanted to be well-liked in college and didn’t realize that being in a sorority didn’t necessarily mean you were going to be liked.
My Recruitment
Recruitment was an intimidating process. To start, all future recruits had to meet in the University Student Union on a Friday morning. We were then put into various groups of more than 15 girls and had to pretend to get along. These were the girls I was going to be spending the next three days with, all in competition to grab a spot in a chapter.
Each group was assigned a pair of Rho Gammas — girls who have been through the recruitment process while keeping their chapter identity a secret.
The Rho Gamma gave their group of girls a pep talk and gave everyone a list of sorority houses that we had to visit. Three girls volunteered to drive everyone around. We followed one another toward the first of seven houses.
The Search for a “Home”
I remember carpooling around Long Beach with girls who seemed incredibly excited to meet their possible new “sisters” for the first time, and some already had their sorority preferences.
I felt like an outsider because the girls I was with knew so much about Greek life while I only knew a few things based on what I’ve watched on TV.
As we arrived at the first sorority, or “house,” we were greeted by the chapter president and a few other sorority girls.
Out of the blue, all of the girls in the sorority began singing a chant about their sisterhood simultaneously. It was awkward for me and made me feel like I was in a scene from “The Stepford Wives.” The girls in the sorority were marching in their heels in such a uniformed fashion that it seemed robotic.
Each recruit paired with a sorority sister and went through what felt like a speed dating process where each girl had to learn everything about each other in about five minutes.
There were many sorority girls I felt hated chatting with me and wanted to end our conversation as soon as possible — like a blind date gone wrong. One girl, for example, looked everywhere besides at me to try and find an escape from what I’m sure she believed to be a horrid conversation.
The sorority member sighed with relief when one of her sisters finally pulled her away from talking to me.
After day one of recruitment, I felt as if I’d told a hundred different girls the same information repeatedly. I was exhausted, but surprisingly excited to find out which houses would accept me as their own.
However, I was beginning to believe sorority life meant having to deal with girls who pretended to like one another, but most likely didn’t.
The following day, I found out I had only been accepted into a single sorority and it was the one my cousin was also a part of.I asked her if the reason I was accepted was because of my connection to her. She said yes.
Although disappointed, I decided to become a member.
Financial Woes
That first semester as a new member proved to be a difficult task for me.
My daily schedule involved me driving to school at 7 a.m. each morning from Garden Grove, followed by driving to work at Knott’s Berry Farm after class, then back to the sorority house in Long Beach, and finally returning home at 11:30 p.m.
As the semester progressed, more events became mandatory, and I was starting to find it difficult to balance my academic, financial and sorority life. I noticed the sorority charged a fee whenever a girl missed an event or meeting, and some fees went well over $50.
I found myself in a catch-22 where I would have to miss an event because I needed to work to pay for my sorority dues.
I would be fined for missing the event, which meant I had to work more hours at Knott’s.
It wasn’t fun like the first semester, and I watched my savings account drain. Being in a sorority meant paying monthly dues. The initial fee, for example, was a few hundred bucks.
I noticed that the once-smiling faces I saw during recruitment turned into frustrated ones.
My “sisters” became upset with my lack of attendance and didn’t seem to understand I had to work to pay my dues.
I questioned how my cousin was able to do it, because she was a theatre major and would be on campus until midnight every night.
I only recently found out that my cousin was over $1,000 in debt to the sorority and ended up leaving the chapter.
My Departure
I took a semester leave of absence entering my sophomore year, and ended up not returning to the sorority. Keeping a positive outlook on my sorority was hard as a result of the toll it took on my finances.
Not to mention, the sassy treatment I was getting from my so-called sisters didn’t help either.
I believe being in a sorority can be a great experience for some; however, it made me realize I was better off without these people.
Sorority girls aren’t always the smiling faces you meet during recruitment. I learned that while the sorority preaches sisterhood, some girls were far from being my sisters.