Sororities-past & now

[Triskeliongirl]

Intersting you say sorority life is expensive. My son finds living in a fratnernity house cheaper than living in a dorm, since the fraternity owns their house, and food prepared by their cook is cheaper than a meal plan. As Mr. Silver stated, I see a lot of positive things coming from his experience. He is being mentored by alumni of his fraternity in the business world. For example, he got a job as a microsoft student partner through this mechanism. Same thing with access to internships, career counseling, etc. I know, I had no clue either about any of this since it wasn't part of my experience.

Its true that you can argue that membership is 'exclusive' but my observation of that process is that its simply about kids finding a good fit with a group of friends, so its not exclusive in a discriminatory way. In fact, my son's frat is the most racially diverse of all frats on campus, and I believe has the second highest GPA for whatever that is worth. I was so impressed when I met his brothers. It was also interesting for me to watch how they did an intervention on a brother who was partying too much and having academic problems. They definitely got him onto the straight and narrow. In fact, my son's first dorm assignment was in a dorm with a huge drug problem (yeh, the air in his suite was thick with pot smoke, even on parent's weekend), and the frat house was a safe haven in which he could work and get away from all that until we were able to get his dor transfer processed. Even though freshmen weren't allowed to live in frat houses, they gave him a bed and desk (free of charge) until he get his housing assignment sorted out with the housing office.

Yes, my son has organized some huge parties, but I view this as a terrific learning experience. He emphasizes how critical it is to be sober in order to put on one of these parties, the fun is not getting drunk, its managing to organize a large event and have it go off without a snag. Leadership training is huge. At MIT kegs aren't allowed, and party plans must be submitted to a council for approval. Its all very strictly regulated.