wraithhibn

How many Greeks do we have on here? I'm a member of Triangle Fraternity, University of Louisville chapter.

Anyone else out there Greek?

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SecretMethod70

I intentionally went to a school that's only 4% greek (now it's 7% but ithat's still quite low), so, no, I'm not greek at all

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World's King

I never went to college long enough.

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greytone

I was a little brother at a sorority. It cost only 1/10 the amount of cash and about 1/5 the amount of time and the ratio was much better at the mixers. We were always outnumbered by the women.

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Frosstbyte

Kappa Alpha Society. Any other Kaps out there?

HamiC

Yes, I was. Sort of...

My school (before abolishing them all after my graduation) had what we referred to as "coed fraternities".

Most of the houses were affiliated with an all-male national that looked the other way and allowed everyone to do what they wanted on a local level, but refused to recognize female members. Most of the houses were roughly 50-50 and very equal. For us, it worked amazingly well. You wound up with extremely close friends of both sex and dating was actually much easier......quite a few of the couples got married from our house.

I suspect that it was different than most greek experiences and certainly better/worse in many areas, depending on your point of view, but I really enjoyed it.

Sensei

No I'm not greek but my apartment complex lives right across from Frat row so it gets damn hard to study sometimes. btw, I'm not sure what Triangle Fraternity is but Delta Delta Delta is the slut sorority here on campus (and nationally, so I hear)

Plummie

I was never into the whole sorority thing. Bah.

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Kim

snowy

Um, the closest I get is that I'm a member of a co-ed service fraternity called Alpha Phi Omega (APO).

According to our by-laws we are not to classify ourselves as "Greek", be a "social fraternity", or have a house.

We do community service, fellowships, and give members opportunities to develop their leadership abilities. Yay for APO!

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SaltPork

Had lots of friends that were...I'm not.

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It was like that when I got here....I swear.

Zotz

Nope.....I was a GDI all through school

Sion

Sigma Nu, Delta Alpha chapter, member 1003

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CBL65

Sigma Nu, Beta Upsilon 1426

Lebell

Hey Snowy!

Another Alpha Phi Omega here!

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JStrider

not in one... wont ever be...
my experience is that a lot of those people are assholes to those that arnt also greek...

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-=JStrider=-

~Clatto Verata Nicto

laconic1

I don't think my school even has any fraternities, so that would be a no. Even if they did I'm not the type of person that goes for that kind of stuff.

JangoFett72

I had no desire to be in a fraternity when I was in college, but I had a lot of friends that were Greek. Tri-Delts were notorious for being sluts on our campus too.

limited

This thread was spurred by another one asking about my greatest accomplishment. For me, it was my initiation into Pi Kappa Phi, which made me wonder how many other members here are in fraternities and which ones. I wouldn't mind having a brother or two here.

Zotz

Duplicate thread

http://tfproject.org/tfp/showthread....&threadid=1439

cheerios

not anymore

...the magic power of the mod strikes again! ... and she rides off into the sunset!

cheerios

btw: GDI and proud of it.

limited

thanks cheerios- i think I joined after the thread disappeared off the bottom. either way- good modding

warrrreagl

GDI all the way, here, too.

I grew up in a college town. When I was a junior in high school, I attended a Spring Fling at the TKE house and found a blackjack game going in the basement. I cleaned them out. Afterward, while walking home, they jumped me, beat the shit out of me, took the money I'd won, and also took the money I came with.

It became my mission in college to fuck with the Greeks as much as possible whenever possible, and I was good at it.

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cheerios

no worries limited. just doin' my job.

the fairy godmod tips her hat and rides off to the sunset. she then hangs a left, or is it a right? at Albuquerque.

(damn it warrreagl, that av of yours is makin' me goofy!)

Boner

I'm going to bite my tongue on this one... No, I was not Greek. Maybe I just had a knack for ending up with the bad group members in class group projects. (NOTE: if at all possible, get ROTC people. They rock.)

However, I do have to say that my experience with good co-workers after my college years improved my opinions of Greeks somewhat.

Sion

" I attended a Spring Fling at the TKE house and found a blackjack game going in the basement. I cleaned them out. Afterward, while walking home, they jumped me, beat the shit out of me, took the money I'd won, and also took the money I came with.

It became my mission in college to fuck with the Greeks as much as possible whenever possible, and I was good at it."

as a former fraternity member, I have to say that NO fraternity condones such behavior. what you have to realize, warrreagl is that you were attacked by some assholes who were PO'd that a junior high school kid was able to take their money. it has nothing to do with the Greek system. you made a very broad generalization about a group of people based on your experience with a very few of those people. thats a lot like racism, wouldnt you say?

generalizations such as this are the work of lazy minds, IMHO, whether its racism, sexism, classism, or any other kind of -ism.

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radonman

Eh, never really appealed to me. Transferring to a small lib arts college in the fall, no Greek life, and it doesn't upset me at all. Doesn't seem like there's much of a point unless you're into the wild parties...

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cheerios

officially anyway. what about hazing? you're not gonna tell me THAT doesn't go on, right? I'd have to say that forcing a pledge to stay up for 4 days straight so that he passed out in class and was eventually roused by paramedics is somewhat... cruel.

and here is where I disagree with you. the greek system encourages the group mentality that enables a group of guys who just got beat by a pre-teen to think it's okay to beat the snot out of him. all for one and one for all, but what if the priorities and ideals of the all aren't "right"?

You're most welcome to your humble opinion, and I hope you don't mind me expressing mine. i'd like to say that I've had good experiences with frat members, but by an large that hasn't been true. For the most part, frats at my college, today, are for groups of men to get together for the sake of getting drunk, laid, and cheating their way through school. This may or may not be the experience you have had, and i"m not calling you drunk, sex-starved, or a cheater. just relating experiences, much like warrreagl up there.

also, on racism: that would be hating a person simply because they belong to a group. what you're thinking of is gross generalizations, and that is something we may both be guilty of, but once bitten twice shy. I don't blame him for disliking a group of guys who were anything but kind.

note: if this doesn't make sense, it's 'cuz it's bed time. night all

soccerstudpc20

i agree with cheerios, even if she's talkin in her sleep

frozenstellar

can someone explain what this thread is about? what are these fraternities you talk about? ive seen them mentioned in movies and on american tv shows.. but what the hell are they?

call me the dumbass aussie if you must.

warrrreagl

Hey, Pismo Beach, and all the clams we can eat!

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warrrreagl

No. I grew up in a university town, and dealt with their two-faced thug-mentality crap all my life, so I got it about right.

Every stray pit bulldog out there isn't going to eat my face off, either. But I'll continue to freely make the broad generalization that they might.

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XenuHubbard

I was conceived during my parents' honeymoon in Greece. So, yeah. I'm kind of Greek.

Ah. Sororities? Nope, but I was a member of my Uni's dart club. We had three members, one was the pub's bartender.

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Troublebot

Nope. GDI all through college.

I use to rag on greeks alot, until I realized that some of the stuff I went through in Boy Scouts was similar to some of the things I hated in greek life.

Now I'm better about it. Still wouldn't have been for me in college though.

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teph

Not me. At the Georgia Tech, they're everywhere, and I can't stand the majority of them. I do have friends in frats, but they were friends of mine before they joined.

As for fraternities in general, They've never really liked me, and I've never really liked them. Some of the people are nice, some of the houses are nice, but as a whole, it's just not for me.

oblar

I have avoided them.. Don't care to be a member, don't like the average intelligence I see in most of the frats on campus (at least the ones that aren't more specific.. i have several friends in the music frat)...

this isn't meant to bash the intelligence of the frats, but just in my expierence they seem to only goto school to party.. They major in something easy.. complain when things aren't handed to them and don't even try to learn anything in any class...

i noticed a couple of people talking about Delta Delta Delta.. well, they are known for being sluts on our campus as well... "Tri-delt, everyone else has!" and "Fly the friendly thighs of Delta Delta Delta." there are several more they always cause me to chuckle..

i am a bit disappointed this last year though.. didnt meet a single Tri-delt I liked this year.. up until now, every year I would meet one really cool tri-delt.... ahh well, maybe I will meet two next year.

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Mael

i was in alpha sigma phi. it was great for about 2 1/2 years, or at least some of that time. it had restarted after being shut down about a year before i got there, so i was only the 24th or so person to join after the restart. lots of good guys, no hazing, cheap costs, lots of friendship. but as we got bigger over the next couple years, more and more "frat boys" we're brought in, and then they'd have thier friends with the "frat" mentality join, etc, and i finally quit cause it had gone so downhill. was a fun couple years though.

Sion

cheerios: "officially anyway. what about hazing? you're not gonna tell me THAT doesn't go on, right?"

no, I'm not going to try to sell you that. It does go on. but again, we are talking about individual houses and the people therein. on the national (official) level, no fraternity out there condones hazing or any other sort of cruel or violent behavior. that is NOT what the fraternity experience it about.

"the greek system encourages the group mentality that enables a group of guys who just got beat by a pre-teen to think it's okay to beat the snot out of him."

NO, it does not. the greek system does not encourage violence of any kind. now, you could accurately say that the greek system does encourage a group mentality ("all for one and one for all") BUT, and this is a big but, so does EVERY organized group of humans every assembled, whether it be the Boy Scouts, the National Organization of Women, the FBI, the CIA, the KKK, any political party, any church and/or religious denomination, any national patriotic group (such as the Daughters of the American Republic), TFP, sewing club, etc, etc, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. and of all these groups, only a very miniscule portion (about, oh...say 0.00001 percent) of them have ever advocated illegal and/of violent behavior. Again, the point is this: at the lowest (ie local/individual) level of any organized group, you can, and frequently will, have members who violate the rules of their group by violating the rules of society. BUT, this does not mean that the entire group is at fault for the behavior of individual members. Consider this analogy: there are bad/evil/crooked cops on police forces all across the world. Does that mean that the entire concept of policing is suspect? Does that mean that EVERY cop is corrupt? Or that the idea of organized police forces is wrong?

"You're most welcome to your humble opinion, and I hope you don't mind me expressing mine."

of course I dont. hell, thats what I like about the TFP. we can freely exchange ideas, thoughts and opinions without rancor (at least in theory. And my experience has been that the TFP ideal works very well. thanks, in a large part, to the work of the moderators.)

"i'd like to say that I've had good experiences with frat members, but by an large that hasn't been true."

again, it comes down to your personal experiences as NOT being representative of the whole. now, IF you could say that you met a majority of all fraternity members, in every fraternity across the entire country, who were active at the time you were in school, and as a result of that, you still felt the same, ONLY THEN could your personal experiences be considered statistically significant. but that didnt happen did it? your anecdotal experiences lead you to think that fraternities are bad. But anecdotal evidence is statistically irrelevant. it does NOT prove anything about the whole.



warrreagl:

"No. I grew up in a university town, and dealt with their two-faced thug-mentality crap all my life, so I got it about right.

Every stray pit bulldog out there isn't going to eat my face off, either. But I'll continue to freely make the broad generalization that they might."

as I pointed out above, eagl, your experiences with the greek system are statistically insignificant when discussing the greek system in toto. maybe that's the way all the fraternities in that town behaved, but that is NOT the way all fraternities across the world/country behave. as I see it, you are pigeon-holing every fraternity member to fit the image you have of them. just as a racist pigeon-holes every black person to fit the image that he/she has of blacks in general. and IMO, that is illogical and unsound thinking.



oblar:

"this isn't meant to bash the intelligence of the frats, but just in my expierence they seem to only goto school to party.. They major in something easy.. complain when things aren't handed to them and don't even try to learn anything in any class..."

this brings up an interesting question that I have for those who want to bash the greek system. just what, exactly, is your knowledge of them based on? for a lot of non-greeks, I'd bet that their experience of the greek system is limited to attending the parties that they frequently throw, and little else. But that is hardly a quantitatively significant portion of any greek's life, even in the hardest partying chapters that have ever existed. and while I freely admit that ANY party (greek or not) wherein large quantities of alcohol are dispensed, can result in behavior that does not fit the social norm, that does not mean that the party hosts are normally that way.


NOTE TO ALL: let me point out that I am NOT trying to convince anyone here to join a fraternity. NOR am I trying to defend anti-social behavior that sometimes is committed by members of fraternities. The biggest reason I got involved in this discussion is that I dont care for the type of gross/broad generalizations that I saw being exhibited here. This type of generalization is, IMHO, no different than racism, or sexism, or any other kind of prejudicial thinking. Instead of taking every person you might meet as an individual, you are pre-judging people based on your own conception (or misconception) of some group that a person might belong to. Is it any different to prejudge a fraternity member as being a "two-faced thug" than it is to prejudge a black person as a "dope smoking rapist"? I dont think so.

For any that might care, let me relate a bit about my fraternity experience. I went to Case Western Reserve University back in the mid-80s. The fraternity I joined was Sigma Nu. Now, on that campus, we were known as the "geek-greeks" or the "Sigma Nurds", among other epithets. Why is that? We'll, most of our members were non-athletic, highly intelligent, majoring in some science or another. My big brother (ie the one who sponsored my admission to the fraternity) was a computer science major, who later went on to become a very successful computer programmer. Another member was an artist studying art history. He later went on to paint many of the covers of our quarterly magazine. There were also a couple of English majors and other liberal arts students, but we were primarily a group of budding scientists. We were also probably the least drug and alcohol induced house on campus. BUT, we always threw great parties. We had theme parties mostly, which is what, IMO, made them stand out from the typical keggers that could be attended at other frats or at numerous off-campus apartment complexes on any given weekend.

I was never hazed. It is part of the Sigma Nu charter that hazing will NOT be tolerated. And in my days there, it was not. The closest thing to hazing I ever experienced was having to complete a pledge-class project over the course of a weekend. My pledge class made a new couch for the basement rec room. Took us half a day to decide on the design. Another half day to go buy the materials and slap it together. Some hazing.

So, I ask you, is my experience typical of the greek system? Perhaps moreso than that of the greek-bashers. But my personal experience of the greek life is no more statistically significant that any of theirs. My house had around 30 brothers while I was there. And I met a couple dozen others brothers, from other chapters or from earlier years at my chapter. Compared to the millions of fraternity members over the course of the last hundred-fifty years or so of American collegiate history, that is statistically insignificant. Just as any of your personal experiences are.

My advice to any of you who are in college: IF you happen to meet up with a group of people who you like and admire and they happen to be a fraternity or sorority, and you feel like joining them: go right ahead and do it. And if you DONT happen to every meet up with any greeks who you like and admire, then by all means DONT join a fraternity or sorority. But dont be led astray by those who think that their personal experiences with greeks are representative of the whole. Make your OWN decisions about people, based on the characteristics you see in each one as an individual.

sorry for ranting.

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He's the best, of course, of all the worst.
Some wrong been done, he done it first. -fz

I jus' want ta thank you...falettinme...be mice elf...agin...

cheerios

Holy Christ Sion your fingers must be tired. I dunno how to give a good rebuttal to such a huge response. i disagree with you on a lot of that. Saying that my opinion isn't statistically sound, for example, isn't quite true, but I just got out of that god damn stats class and really don't wanna go into it. I have nothing to say about greek systems of hte past, or greek systems at other school. i have met/spent time with/worked with, a significant number of greeks at my school, both male and female. And as a result, i have little or no respect for the society as a whole. It's purpose is to build brotherhood, but it creates elitism. It doesn't condone violence, but much violence is fostered under the roofs of it's houses. what individual members do reflects on the organizations as a whole. you seem to be saying that because the stated purposes and goals of being greek are noble, that the result is noble too, and that is not always true.

I didn't say the greek system encouraged violence. I said the greek system encourages arrogance and a kind of group-elitism. THESE are what seems to cause violence. "You're not cool unless you're greek. you will regret it the rest of your lives. you won't have REAL brotherhood, unless you join a frat. We'll be your family." sounds perilously close to a gang mentality to me.

And I'm not trying to come down on you, personally. I'm really not. And I'm not trying to come down on every frat brother past, present, and future, 'cuz there are good ones. But, as a whole, I'm a lot less inclined to trust a man who walks up to me wearing letters, than one who doesn't. Could just be a product of my life up till now. I didn't get along w/ the boys w/ the letterman jackets in high school either. could just be a localized phenomena at my school. But, I have to live in my environment, and use my own personal judgment. and if I blow off one frat boy who could have been a great friend, but save myself the miserable experience of being around 20 who would make my life miserable? I'm willing to take that hit.

oblar

Sion, there is a reason I said "in my expierence".. Let me clarify by what I meant by that.. Yes, I have been to parties thrown by frats, but that is not what I am judging them on. I based my judgement on the frat guys that were in my classes. Who stood in line with me, who were rude to others as they were waiting as well..

now I wish to say that this is a very biased view, but it is the view I hold. This is biased because who are the typical frat people? Are they the rude ones? Not always, it is just that the rude ones are the ones a person will notice.

Your frat sounds like a decent frat; one I would even enjoy being a part of, but at my college, and my only expierence with fraternities, there aren't any real cohesion for people of my major (Computer Engineering).. We work alone or in groups of 2. It is pretty pathetic.

I have a few friends who are part of a music frat. It actually seems like a decent one on campus, but the only exposure I have to it is through my friends, so again it is biased.

However, even after this last semester in my last liberal arts class, I had three frat guys sit in front of me during class.. They showed up to maybe 30% of the classes.. On top of that, when they did show up, they did not pay attention, were inconsiderate, and often times reeked of alcohol. Take into consideration this was an 11am class. This is the typical greek behavior among the majority of the frats on our campus (from what I have observed in all of my classes) and this is where my judgement comes from.

I am in no way saying all frats are horrible wastes of space, but I really don't like alot of the special considerations they are often given and how most of them do not even take it seriously.. (im not going to go into the special considerations other than they just built new frat houses on the tax payers money.. they didnt spend a dime and now live in mansions).

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.All that we can do to help ourselves is stay alive." - Rush