3 Reasons to Join a Fraternity

Joining a fraternity while you're in college can expand your college experience worlds more than you expected it could. Your participation in Greek Life will be fun, challenging, and rewarding. It will be especially fun.

Choosing which fraternity to join can be difficult. After all, during fraternity recruitment you are expected to make a decision that will last your entire college career in about two weeks. Talk about a rushed decision. Because of that, you should be sure of the reasons why you should join a fraternity. Below are three very good ones:

The friendships you develop are powerful, life-long bonds. These bonds are not just with the brothers in your chapter. Your national fraternity may have 100 chapters, and brothers are brothers, no matter which chapter they come from.

However, there is nothing better than passing a brother on campus or having someone you don’t know introduce himself because he also wore the letters you are wearing on your shirt. It’s impossible to list each positive effect you’ll experience because of your fraternal friendships. The fraternal friendship is unique among all other friendships, and is well worth the blood, sweat, tears, and money you may have to contribute.

You can do more in a fraternity than you can do on your own. If you’re looking to bulk up your resume, starting a campus service program or participating in student government may do that a little. But try to accomplish your goals with 50 brothers on your side, and you’re sure to exceed what you would have done on your own.

That might not be your style - making big ideas happen. But I can guarantee that no matter what you major in, you can do some sort of work related to your major that will benefit the fraternity. Think outside of the box. You’ll go places.

Another great reason is all the good stuff you can do. Whether it’s leadership, philanthropy, academics, community service, or the dozen other things Greeks do, they’re doing something that’s worth talking about. They are doing things that enrich the lives of their members. They are doing things that aren’t done by students who aren’t Greek.

It may be having a social life, participating in an after school program for disadvantaged elementary school kids, or leading the fraternity as president. But chances are, it’s actually all of those things. Fraternities are unique in that they help meet all of the needs you have during college.

Whether it’s a club for your major, an academic honorary, an athletic team, or student government, there is most certainly going to be something missing that fraternities and sororities don’t miss.

Don’t go through fraternity recruitment and join a fraternity because you want to go to have great parties. Join a fraternity because you’re going to be able to develop meaningful friendships with guys who share the same values and goals as you. Realize that by joining you will be developing your character, something you can’t put a value on.

This is an opportunity and experience that is the difference between an average college experience and an exceptional one. I strongly encourage you to take it!