<p>I was a member of Theta Tau when I was at Bama so I could probably shed a little light. I know the chapter has been trying to get more active in campus activities like Bama Bound because we are relatively unknown on campus especially compared to all of the big name social frats in the vicinity. And I admit that I initially got hooked in on a game night because personally, it was just to hard for me to resist a Halo tourney ha. Mid-semester game nights are open to the entire university because like I said, we are trying to increase our presence on campus and more people make game nights a lot of fun. We either have them at the house, the Ferguson center, or at the Riverside complex.</p>
<p>Anyway, rush period varies from semester to semester according to the wishes of the rush chair but they typically last 2-4 weeks at the beginning of each semester and anybody who shows a considerable amount of interest such as showing up to multiple rush events (which for the fall semester would probably include a game night, volleyball tourney on the volleyball court adjacent to the house, meet and greet, anything else the rush chair comes up with) or just hanging around the house gets an invite with pinning on the following Friday. We put up flyers in all of the engineering buildings (SEC, Hardaway, Houser, MIB, etc) as well as Gordon Palmer (home of the math department).</p>
<p>What I liked best about Theta Tau was that you get the best of both worlds. As a professional fraternity, we hold professional development workshops where a speaker comes in to talk about resume building and presentation, networking, general motivation, career opportunities available upon graduation and general discussion about recent news in their respective industries, etc. But as engineers we know how hard classes can be so usually every weekend its a time to unwind by having little socials or the 1-2 huge parties that we have every semester.</p>
<p>I will admit that in the past we have kinda exemplified the nerdy stereotypes as people who play a lot of games or study hardcore, but members from recent pledge classes have made significant attempts to separate the chapter from those stereotypes. But personally I had no problem with the so-called nerdiness even though I was a very active type in high school (v baseball and football, jv basketball, cross country, track, countless ultimate frisbee games). Being surrounded by a large range of engineering majors is not exactly a bad situation to be in whenever you need help for a class and you’re bound to learn something new every week just from being around them.</p>
<p>Everybody there has their quirks and perks and in the past there have been some love/hate relationships between a few people, but those small negatives were completely overshadowed by the all of the fun and diverse learning experiences I had while there and the lifelong friends I have made. Plus, noting that you are a member of the nation’s largest and oldest professional engineering fraternity doesn’t hurt your resume either…</p>
<p>So yeah, you basically get all of the benefits of a professional (or social) frat without the negatives of a social one. Pledges do some of the activities that pledges in other frats do such as helping clean up the house or picking up stadium cups after games, but no parent has to worry about their son or daughter being hazed.</p>