Is there a better way to complete your college experience than joining a fraternity house? If you strive for higher education, this is the community that will help boost you in more ways than one.
Fraternities and sororities are networks of people that preach solidarity. They all have their core values and what they stand up for. Based on those values and your interests, you take your pick. After you join a house, you participate in their activities. You have duties and responsibilities, as well as principles to uphold and rules to abide by.
That can help you greatly during your college life. You’ll meet new friends, make connections, and learn valuable skills that will help you later in life.
But what happens after? What happens after you graduate? Are you still a part of your fraternity house, or is all of that over for good? We answer all of these and more in this article. Find out all you need to know and proudly stand by your house even after you graduate.
Many say that you don’t choose the Greek life — the Greek life chooses you.
Being in a Fraternity Is Part of the University Life
Being a part of a college fraternity house isn’t exactly like you see it in movies. It’s not all packed with rowdy, out-of-control guys in an animal house you should stay away from. There’s a much more significant meaning behind all of this.
Fraternity definition comes down to people coming together for a common cause (or an idea, or a purpose). There’s a strong sense of brotherhood that binds all the people involved. So, there’s more to joining a fraternity than meets the eye.
It’s not just people joining a random community. When you’re in it, other people become your second family.
Benefits of Joining a Fraternity
There are many benefits to being a part of a frat house. However, that shouldn’t be the only reason why you’re joining. You have to be willing to help others. Why? The only way you’ll enjoy the benefits is if you benefit someone else as well.
Fraternity is all about solidarity, and it promotes bonding of frat brothers. Let’s say it’s your first day of college. You have no friends and no idea what to do. That’s when you turn to a fraternity that will welcome you with open arms.
The fraternity shifts your focus onto what other people need, and you learn to respect their feelings. So it’s safe to say that joining a frat makes you an overall better person. However, you still have duties and responsibilities within your house of choice.
If you’re not ready to devote your time and energy, you shouldn’t join at all.
The Duties and Contribution After Graduation
Many people think that frat life ends once you graduate. However, Greek life doesn’t last for four years only. It’s forever. Don’t let that freak you out, though. If you agree with your house’s core values, then you won’t have any problems upholding them throughout your life.
One of the ways you can contribute is if you continue showing up at gatherings of your house. Or volunteer. Of course, you don’t have to mix with students. Every fraternity house has a network of members that have already graduated.
Those members can help you transition into adulthood easier. You must do the same for the next graduate member and so on.
Maintaining effective communication is excellent for keeping up with the members of your house. You can always contribute financially too. But the whole point is being able to rely on other brothers whenever you need it.
Social Skills
If you lack social skills, then you’re in luck. We know that being shy might get in the way of a lot of things. Joining a fraternity can help change that. Here is how.
When you’re a member of a house, you’re continuously interacting with people who have similar interests. That will help you form groups according to your personality and taste. Talking to people who understand you first can help you break out of that shell. Later, you can focus on interacting with other people as well.
There’s no need to be a social butterfly 24/7. However, you can’t be a loner either and shut everyone out. Being a frat brother means you have to find a healthy social balance. Don’t be scared to show up at the gatherings or volunteer for your house.
Gaining social skills will benefit you greatly in life.
Community Service
Finding the time for community service should be in everyone’s mind. Not just when it comes to frat members. People should generally care for each other, or at least enough to help those in need. Unfortunately, it’s not really like this at all.
People nowadays don’t really care about others. That’s just the way it is — everyone has an ego to look after. It’s sad that this has become completely normal.
Being a part of a fraternity helps you see beyond yourself. It motivates you to go out of your way to help others in need. Through this, you learn to care for and love those who have it much tougher than you. It helps you see their struggle and want to help them without expecting anything in return.
Your sense of unity reaches a much higher level, and it’s something you can pass on to others.
Network
Having a network of people is something that we’ve mentioned as a benefit of joining a fraternity a few times throughout this article. Once again — it’s entirely true. Having this kind of network to lean on can be extremely helpful.
That doesn’t apply to you only while you’re in college. This network of people follows you throughout your life, so make sure you make good friends with everyone. Having the support of your peers wherever you turn can be motivating. It makes you feel like you’re not alone even when you feel like the world has turned against you.
We’re not only talking about career advancements and job opportunities, though. Your housemates will support your general interests as well. Being in a fraternity helps you steer the conversation in the right direction. And the peer network provides you with valuable resources that will help you on any kind of journey.
Leadership Training
You don’t have to be in charge of anything within the frat house to be learning leadership skills. Many of those things can be learned by being a bystander, but you can also get more of a hands-on approach.
Learning the basics of leadership is among the most useful things a brotherhood can offer. Houses often organize gatherings or events that will help you learn leadership skills through different roles (organization or management), both active and passive.
You can acquire any leadership skills within a fraternity. Oratory and communication skills are among them, as you have to debate on different topics all the time.
It all comes down to how you want to polish the skills you probably already have lurking on the inside, waiting to come out.
Social Events
Yes, yes, now we’ve come to the party section. Sure, you want to work hard, but your college life doesn’t only consist of that.
Parties are a regular occurrence for frat houses. However, we will call them social events. Why? Simply because not every party has to involve what’s portrayed in the media.
Your academic life won’t completely revolve around studying and learning. Many fraternities usually allow you to have light-hearted social gatherings. Those can also include sports events. All in all, such gatherings can help you explore your talents. So yes, parties are important — having fun is just as important as working hard.
Burning out is a real thing, and you want to prevent that from happening. That’s why you have to find a healthy balance between work and play. Organizing these events also ties back to the whole leadership training part as you can participate in event management.
Summary
All in all, joining a fraternity can be beneficial in a lot of ways. You get to develop important skills but also create a network of people. These people will support you in life, and the skills will get you where you need to go.
Life on college campuses is, for sure, fun. Being a part of a brotherhood (or a sorority) makes your life all that much easier. No matter what you strive to achieve, your fraternity will back you up.
Here we can see that things aren’t as they’re portrayed in the media at all. Sure, there are parties. But there are no out of control parties where absolutely everything goes wrong. People aren’t rude and unhelpful — they aren’t trying to set you up for failure.
Of course, there are exceptions to every rule. However, these kinds of stereotypes (enforced by the media) do way more harm than good. They don’t help people decide they want to join these frat houses. Fraternities are campus organizations for serious people that want to help each other out, people that thrive on unity.
They are exactly the kind of people you should want to be friends with and look up to.
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