BURSTEIN: Sororities bring out best in members

This past weekend, my sorority sisters and I participated in recruitment, looking for our newest member class of sisters. In the process, I learned an incredible amount about my chapter and myself, and I finally realized after a year of membership why I care so much about it.

I’m the type of person who gets sick of people easily. I can barely spend more than a few days at a time with one group of friends, which is why I originally decided to look into sorority life in the first place. I needed to expand my narrow perspective of Boston University and make more connections.

If I couldn’t, I worried that I would get aggravated with the friends I had already made. So I bought my blazers and flats, fired up my hair straightener and mentally prepared myself to find my perfect chapter.

One year later, there I was, gathering myself to participate in recruitment again, but on the other side. I had joined a chapter where I felt incredibly comfortable. I found amazing friends within my member class, knowledgeable mentors in the older girls and even the big sister I never had in my “big.” Everything was great, but in such a large group of diverse and independent women, I still couldn’t figure out what it was that drew us all to this chapter.

As a chapter woman, recruitment means four days of spending every waking hour with your sisters. We wear matching outfits, curl each other’s hair and scream cheers at the top of our lungs until we lose our voices, trying to show off our best assets and meet potential new members. Frankly, it’s exhausting, and as someone who tires of spending time with the same people, I was not looking forward to it.

We had finally reached the fourth and final day, and I was completely done. I was tired, hungry and hadn’t checked my email since recruitment started. I was whining about my frustrations during the last few minutes of a break, when one of our sisters came into the room crying. I had spoken to her a few times, but I didn’t know much about her.

At that moment, she shared why she decided to join our chapter. She had gone through a lot in her personal life and was simply looking for support. At the end of her story, she thanked us, and through her tears, she told us how happy she was to find that support in our chapter. All 100 of us, her best friends as well as girls who had only said hello to her a few times, were weeping.

At that moment, I realized why my sorority means so much to me. I won’t deny that I can relate to some sisters more than others. But all of us were looking for something that we felt was missing when we decided to go through recruitment. That missing piece may be a support system, a better group of friends, a way to get involved or really anything else.

In our chapter, we found our missing piece, and we found more missing pieces that we never knew existed. We all got so emotional together because we realized that at the end of quite possibly the most draining four days ever, we were changing our potential new members’ lives along with our own. Everything became so clear.

I understand that Greek life has its issues. I am not the type of person to claim that only some chapters have ideals that spur problematic incidents. I believe that we are all parts of the same system, and even though we may not go to the same school, when one chapter messes up, every chapter in existence has to work to fix that system.

I came out of recruitment realizing that if all of us dug deep down inside to figure out our missing piece, maybe we could work out Greek life’s kinks. At the end of the day, it is the individuals who have nothing to gain beside the flashy profile pictures and the letters on their shirts who drag Greek life backward.

We have a job as members of the Greek community to work on our reputation in the public eye, not by attempting to change people’s perceptions of us, but by discovering why we were drawn to Greek life and changing the system to reflect those values.

It’s a lot of work, but it’s work that needs to be done. And it’s worth it. It sounds horribly cheesy, but first I was a part of my chapter, and now it’s a part of me. I would do anything to make sure that connection continues to endure.