<p>Here's an article a friend posted on my FB page:</p>
<p>Secret</a> Handshakes Greet Frat Brothers on Wall Street - Bloomberg</p>
<p>While some parts of the fraternity prepping experience is fine and aboveboard, others are reminiscent of the old stereotype of fraternities dubiously keeping old exams/papers on file for fraternity brothers to use to get through classes. </p>
<p>What are your thoughts?</p>
<p>Not sure where to start. :(</p>
<p>There are thousands and thousands of people who work on wall street. The idea that some fraternities determine who gets all these jobs is pretty stupid. There are more men on wall street because men in general are more interested in finance than are women.</p>
<p>When I read this article last week, I thought the writer was under pressure to submit something, just anything.
One could substitute “fraternity” for a “target school” and its career office and gets the same results.</p>
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<p>And because of sexism.
Even once at the interview stage, to ignore all that comes before it, women are reminded that, gender-wise, they’ll be on their own, and they do better providing their interviewers with evidence that they have succeeded in boy’s clubs in the past.</p>
<p>It sounds more like a certain group at a certain school helping out other members of that group. I doubt very much that it’s any more widespread than any other “it’s who you know” sort of leg-up … like Dad’s golf buddy’s company, or Uncle Joe’s firm, or Aunt Susie’s best friend’s office. I don’t think it’s as big a deal as the author of the article might like to have you believe.</p>
<p>Disgusting. Yet another reason I dislike the business world. At my alma mater frats (and sororities) were/are not much on campus (it may impact the member’s daily lives but has zero impact on the rest of the students). Not impressed by Wall Street as a desirable place to want to work, just as U’s with a strong frat system don’t impress me. </p>
<p>“Not sure where to start”- sally305, I did it now I’ll quit before I dig a deeper hole.</p>
<p>How is this any different from (say) the Notre Dame alumni network? Or the Texas A&M network? Or the Knights of Columbus in a small town? Friends help friends because that’s what they do. It’s no more or less nefarious if they were both Sigma Chis than if they lived on the same hall at a non-Greek school. </p>
<p>Plus, people aren’t stupid. They aren’t going to ruin their own reputations by putting forth unqualified people. </p>
<p>20 years ago, I went to bat for a sorority sister of mine who I thought would be perfect for a job at my company (she was a senior and I was four years out at the time). I helped her prep for the interview, I gave her helpful hints on what to say, etc. She kicked butt, got the job and went on to a successful career. I have zero regrets and would do it again in a heartbeat. I also served as a mentor to recent members. </p>
<p>My S’s friends have asked me for internships. I don’t have any to give, but if I did, why wouldn’t I consider them? </p>
<p>This is much ado about nothing. You know, the people who go to Notre Dame or Ole Miss feel just as strongly about helping their alumni network, but no one has a problem with that (nor should they).</p>
<p>"others are reminiscent of the old stereotype of fraternities dubiously keeping old exams/papers on file for fraternity brothers to use to get through classes. "</p>
<p>We had an exam file. Of exams that had, you know, been passed back to the students by the professors. Not stolen or anything. We used it to study from - just like non-Greeks might have gotten older exams from friends who had previously taken the course. These are fair game IMO.</p>
<p>I don’t know why this is news. People help their friends get hired. Whoopee, big surprise. Most any job, it is very much the people that you know, or have some connection to that will get you hired, and pave the way for you.</p>
<p>At my company, you absolutely need a recommendation from someone to get in the door. I have recommended my friends, ex co-workers, and friends of friends. I have given people all the intel I could. When I was looking for interviews at certain companies, I had a stack of information two feet high I could read through. It was insane. You help your buds, what’s new about that?</p>
<p>Every single college with a forum on CC has an alumni network, and many have numerous clubs – the XYZ College Club of Atlanta or Rochester or Kansas City or what-have-you. So you move to that city and you join the club for networking and/or social purposes. What’s the difference?</p>
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<p>The fair game part depends on the Professor IME. </p>
<p>Some Professors I’ve had explicitly prohibited students from sharing old exams or papers with later students at the risk of both parties being brought up on academic honor violations. </p>
<p>Moreover, most Profs who weren’t that extreme* would either announce on the syllabus and/or in class that old exams were available. A few may even post them on the course website for all students to partake at their leisure. </p>
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<li>Personally, I felt that’s an absurd stretch of the honor code. However, if a given undergraduate needs to study old exams to succeed in a given course beyond mere familiarization with the exam format, I’m of the opinion the course is being taught abysmally, the given undergraduate has goofed off most of the term, and/or the given undergraduate is so woefully unprepared that he/she shouldn’t have been taking that course in the first place.</li>
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<p>Sigh. If it had been prohibited by an honor code, we wouldn’t have done so. </p>
<p>And I disagree that it means that the course was taught poorly or that the student was a blow-off. I know it doesn’t fit your narrative, but we were, for the most part, serious students who wanted to learn and do well. </p>
<p>But anyway, this has little to do with the initial claim that it’s somehow nefarious or wrong that friends help friends.</p>
<p>This is one of the stupidest parts of a stupid article:</p>
<p>“Patrick Laterza, who works in wealth management for Citigroup, went to Binghamton University last year to try to preserve Zeta Beta Tau’s chapter there, e-mails obtained through public-records requests show. It lost recognition from the fraternity’s national organization and from the school, a State University of New York campus.””</p>
<p>So, an alumni who happens to work on Wall Street goes back to campus to do something for his fraternity. So freakin" what? What, there’s something different about the fact that he works on WS as opposed to being a doctor, lawyer or ad executive? I don’t know what this is supposed to prove here.</p>
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<p>Actually, the public availability of old exams is generally a good thing.</p>
<ul>
<li>It eliminates the advantage of “secret exam files” in fraternities and such.</li>
<li>It deters instructors from reusing old exam questions.</li>
<li>It allows students to get an idea of what college exams are like before they take real ones (usually not loaded up with easy questions to allow C students to answer 70% of them correctly as high school exams are).</li>
<li>For some frosh-level courses, it allows students with AP credit to check their knowledge against the college’s expectation in the course that they are allowed to skip with AP credit.</li>
</ul>
<p>I agree with whoever said it: MUCH ado about nothing. Big freakin’ deal. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Yup. Agreed. This gives me a big yawn.</p>
<p>Don’t even get me started on the Notre Dame network! I worked for a mid-sized firm, who once they heard you were a ND alum, were nearly guaranteed a position, and shepherded along the proverbial ladder, even if your work was sub-par. Yuck.</p>
<p>I think the problem some of us have is that these networks tend to reward men far more than women. Try being a woman in management in a corporate setting where all the male executives slink out on Friday afternoons to play golf. A lot of “business” happens in environments in which women are not welcome.</p>
<p>^^^Yeah, I wish I had given my D the opportunity to learn to play golf like some of our friends did. But back in the day, soccer took so much of her time, it didn’t even enter our minds.</p>