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Students told to think about right reasons for joining groups


To claim that greeks don’t perform valuable community service would be ignorant. In fact, their altruistic fund-raisers are extremely successful. I’m fully aware of their good deeds. The emphasis of my reaction to a recent Pacer article concerned how much more expensive it is to belong to a greek society than any other service organization. Obviously, a person willing to pay so much more has another reason – in addition to philanthropy – for wanting to belong. The reason often supplied by greeks themselves is the networking potential as they transition into the working world.

We see many figures intended to show how successful greeks become, but a simple reversal of the figures often gives a more sobering picture. I was unaware of the NALFO and FLA, which further reduce your odds of encountering a brother/sister and raise your chances of encountering someone who holds a negative preconception of you just because of what fraternity/sorority you belonged to. Furthermore, it means the ratio of successful to unsuccessful greeks is even worse than I had realized.

I was surprised at how much of Bubrig’s response detailed drinking and drug problems, since those received no attention in my article.

Essentially, if you’re interested and have the money to spare, join a fraternity/sorority for the social atmosphere, the philanthropy, the leadership opportunities, etc. But please don’t go in with a misperception that being greek will “get you a job” any better than less expensive comparable organizations. I mentioned Circle K simply because it seems to be the most well-known general, non-major-specific service organization on this campus.

I apologize if word count limitations left anyone confused about my central message.

Earl Hassett is a Management Information Systems major from Clarksville.