Sororities Essay

948 Words4 Pages

Sororities came into existence in 1851 while being called women’s fraternities, and it was not until 1882 that they were known as sororities. They have swept across America, with almost every university having some form of Greek life as a part of the campus experience. Each year, during sorority recruitment, tens of thousands of incoming first-year students or transfers base a portion of their first semester on whether they want to join a sorority and which one they would select. This process can cause extreme amounts of stress and unease, but most do not realize the long-term positive effects of joining a sorority in general. Although there are many misconceptions surrounding sorority life and its benefits for its members, the verifiable …show more content…

These are the lifelong connections that come from joining a sorority that explains how it can positively affect the ideas and opinions of those going through sorority recruitment or even current members. The rituals that sororities perform with each other allow for the women to grow close bonds that one could not get when not affiliated with a sorority. These opinions are directly showcased in Farrington’s article after she interviewed a woman who said, “It makes me more confident in who I am. I’ve always knows I can do things, but knowing I have 60 other women supporting me is great” (Farrington, 8). This real-life statistic shows how influential being in a sorority can be even after someone is not necessarily seeing their fellow members all the time. For business connections and job opportunities, many members in someone’s sorority know a person in a position of work they are interested in and who would be beneficial to know to obtain that particular position. There are also instances where some employers will recognize that a potential employee is in the same sorority or fraternity, which could potentially give them an advantage. These advantages do not apply to all job opportunities, but being in a sorority has clear benefits for connections with people through friendships and …show more content…

Any philanthropic service that one can do, not just through a sorority, significantly benefits someone’s personal and communal life. Being in a sorority, however, gives someone even more opportunities to give back to the community and be able to do it consistently. Although most sororities and fraternities require their members to participate in community service, almost all members continue doing this philanthropic work and benefit from it in many ways. These certain benefits could be connecting with one’s community, growing social skills through communicating with members of the community and getting a different aspect of one’s community that could have them react positively to change it. In research on how philanthropy events affect members of a sorority or fraternity, Long says, “The researchers found that service involvement was positively associated with fraternity/sorority membership, being female, and academic performance” (Long, 18). Not only does community service positively affect memberships but also being a female, while most sororities are closely related to women’s