Pledging

When I came to Carolina, I wasn’t planning on becoming a part of the Greek system. I was just going to go to my classes, meet some new people, chill with friends a lot, and just be a normal college kid. But that all changed when I decided to pledge a fraternity. I’m not saying that I can’t do any of the things I just listed but pledging definitely takes a toll on you and is very time-consuming.

When fall rush started, I figured I would just visit some of my friends at some of the frats to just hang out and party for free. But one of my friends who I played basketball with in high school convinced me that pledging was the way to go. I really liked his frat so I decided to make the commitment to pledging. I didn’t know what I was getting into.

Quick note: many of the things that take place during our pledging period are extremely confidential and are secret to the Sigma Chi Fraternity. I am not allowed to discuss some of these events or occurrences but I can talk about some of the more broad things.

During pledging, we are encouraged (so you pretty much have to) to be at the house when you don’t have class or another school function. This gives you a chance to get to know all of the brothers better because each one of them must approve of you becoming a brother before you can be initiated. This takes up a lot of time and really makes trying to do anything else very hard. If a brother asks you to do something like get them a drink or give them a ride, it is pretty much required that you do it. All in all, nothing was really that bad, it just takes up a lot of time. Until…

We took our pledge retreat trip to the University of Alabama. This sounded like a lot of fun until we realized that it was it a ten-hour drive to get there and that Alabama is essentially the frat capital of the south. Not so good when you are a pledge. We stayed there for two nights; one of them was kind of fun, the other not so much. Obviously, I was happy when we left that place.

So up to this point pledging hasn’t been that bad and I would recommend pledging a fraternity or sorority because the Greek system really is great. Then again, I haven’t been through I Period yet (also called “Hell Week” by some fraternities, not ours). It won’t be that bad. I hope.