Greek life: a most patriotic thing to do - An insider's guide to the whole fraternity scene, rush week and the pledging process

It's your first week at Hopkins and you've probably already seen the many fraternity houses around the neighborhood. Perhaps you've even gone inside some of them and met some of the brothers. If you browsed through any of the literature on the campus social scene, you may have also realized that one in five Hopkins students are involved in Greek life. At Hopkins, fraternities and sororities are dominant on the social scene, especially among freshmen.

But if you are anything like I was when I first got here last year, there are many important questions you wished you had the answers to. What are fraternities all about, anyway? Am I a likely candidate to pledge a fraternity at Hopkins? Other than the obvious social scene, why do people pledge fraternities anyway? How does rushing and pledging work? Here's the low-down on some things you should know about fraternities at Hopkins.

Students decide to pledge fraternities for many different reasons. For some, the ties of brotherhood that are found within the organization make the Hopkins experience amazing and the ties as alumni invaluable. For others, reasons include the obvious draw of enhanced social life, helpful connections with other chapters nationwide or even simply being part of something that may improve them as people during their years at Hopkins.

People become brothers through two processes: rushing and pledging. Formal rush for freshmen takes place during spring semester, as every fraternity on campus holds a week-long rush program in order to get to know freshmen and so the freshmen can find what each fraternity is all about.

Towards the end of rush, each fraternity decides which rushes (the people who rushed) they want as potential brothers. If a fraternity decides that they want someone as a potential brother, they will give him a formal bid, which is an offer to pledge the fraternity. Many students get bids from more than one fraternity, and then must decide which one they would like to pledge.

If the rush accepts the bid, he begins a pledge program with all the other rushes who were given bids. Pledging usually takes one semester and is designed to build brotherhood and knowledge of the history of the fraternity.

The difficulty of pledging varies from fraternity to fraternity. Some pride themselves in their difficult pledging programs, while others feel that an easier pledge program is the way to go. Either way, you won't be attaching 30lb. cinder blocks to certain parts of your body and dropping them off the roof.

At the end of the pledge process, brothers decide on which pledges they would like to initiate as brothers of the fraternity.

Here at Hopkins, as with many things, there are also some people who are vehemently against Greek life. My suggestion, as with many other things at Hopkins, is to give Greek life a chance before getting caught up in negativity.

In fact, if you think about it, nothing could be more unpatriotic than bad-mouthing fraternities. According to the classic cultural art film Animal House:

"You can't hold a whole fraternity responsible for the behavior of a few, sick twisted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn't we blame the whole fraternity system? And if the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn't this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? I put it to you, Greg -- isn't this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do whatever you want to us, but we're not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America."

If rushing does sound like something you may want to try and you're a freshman, you're going to have to wait until second semester to do so. If you're a sophomore and didn't get a chance to participate in rush last year, I highly suggest that you do. As a freshman coming to Hopkins, I never pictured myself as the fraternity "type." I found out how wrong I was during the first night of rush week.

To me, not participating in any rush events, no matter what year you are, is the worst choice you could possibly make. But hey, if you love Terrace and Wolman food, don't like to meet new people and hate having fun, then by all means, stay in front of your computer, posting messages all day on the Daily Jolt. If you find after participating in rush that fraternity life is not for you, no harm done.

The best way for you to know what each fraternity is about is to go out to some parties and meet brothers yourself. There are plenty of fraternities to choose from, and you're sure to find one that fits you.