Most students spent their first week back on campus buying new notebooks, getting accustomed once again to late nights at the library and going out with friends on the weekend. I spent the first week back on campus being part of a mini-series of The Bachelor. 

For me, sorority was synonymous with both rich, self-centered party girls and a group of bright, kind sisters. Apparently, the latter outweighed the former because one of the first things I did when I got into Dickinson was search up the sororities on campus. I was moving across the country, away from all of my family and friends that I had grown up with, so what was better than finding a group of like-minded girls to bond and form meaningful relationships with? This was especially urgent after returning to campus from a month-long hiatus realizing that I had met roughly 10 percent of the entire student body and genuinely knew 4 percent of them. Through all of those stressful late nights of standing out in the bitter wind in alphabetical order, I honestly think that taking part in recruitment was most likely the best decision I made socially to kick off this semester.

Although my first Tuesday through Saturday back on campus consisted of me trembling in my best friend’s room, worried I won’t get invited back to my favorite sorority, I was able to tremble alongside dozens of other terrified girls and, eventually, hug and scream with them while sprinting towards our new sisters at Bosler on Bid Day.

There tends to be a lot of negative stigma surrounding sororities, even on a campus as academically invested as Dickinson; but I think people tend to underestimate the girls that decide to join a sorority. Movies like House Bunny and Sydney White paint pictures of bleached blond girls with fabulous sports cars and a hidden agenda to ensure that Greek Life remains the most popular group on campus. At Dickinson, only a small minority of students are involved in Greek Life, and there is certainly no secret plan to knock down the science building in order to make room for a new Greek Life mansion. We have biochemists and varsity athletes and musicians amongst linguists and environmentalists and mathematicians. I believe we are a hodge-podge of talented, driven young women that want a solid support system on campus, a group that will follow you, from Bid Day to graduation to, as strange as it sounds, the grave. That is what a sorority is all about, at least from what I’ve noticed.

So, I suppose the myths about ridiculous songs and the sanctity of our Greek letters many not be totally false; but I have met girls from every corner of Dickinson’s campus, girls I never would have met if it wasn’t for that first week of recruitment. Even though I now have another commitment to add to my already busy schedule, at least I have a bunch of sisters to struggle through it with and some great songs to sing along the way.