<p>I went to a tiny Jesuit school in Upstate NY so my idea of Greek Life largely comes from the movie “Animal House”. I know Greek Life is big at UA. Can someone fill me in about what it’s like? </p>
<p>Most of the negative comments I’ve seen about UA relate to “The Machine”.</p>
<p>The answer to your question is too big to answer in a few sentences. Are you interested in fraternity or sorority life?
Yes, Greek life is big at UA, but the majority of students are NOT Greek. You can have an active social life without pledging any group.</p>
<p>Greek life tends to be more important to certain majors, and less important to other majors. Many in business and communication majors are Greek. Many in STEM majors are not. </p>
<p>What major are you interested in?</p>
<p>My son is going to study computer science or computer engineering. He hasn’t expressed any interest in joining a fraternity.</p>
<p>If he hasn’t mentioned it, I wouldn’t worry about it.
Fraternity recruitment and fraternities themselves are way less structured that sororities. The groups tend to be smaller - a big fraternity is 150 men vs. 300 women for a big sorority. As I said earlier, more students are independent than are Greek, and the percentage of non-Greek is even higher for men.
The students I know in computer science or computer engineering have an even more independent attitude. They tend to form their own friendship groups. Not always, of course, but a lot of times.
Check out the thread about “can a nerd thrive at Bama.” ;D</p>
<p>My son came to UA determined to never join a fraternity. He held every stereotype and bias about Greek life that you can imagine. By the middle of his freshman year he’d joined one. By his sophomore year he’d become the organization’s head of recruitment.</p>
<p>His experience has been anything but Animal House. He’s a NMF (as are others in his fraternity) and maintains an impeccable GPA. For him, fraternity life has been wonderfully additive to his UA experience. It’s not for everyone ( it wasn’t for me), but as my son discovered, an open mind is a wondrous thing indeed.</p>
<p>It’s worth noting that the culture of fraternity chapters can vary from school to school and over time. With the exception of a couple fraternities, UA has a distinctive Southern Greek culture, which is different from what you may see in NY, New England, or the West Coast for example.</p>
<p>The best advice I can give is to keep an open mind, ignore the stereotypes you may hear about certain organizations including Old Row vs. New Row, and stay true to yourself. While I know many great people in fraternities and sororities and should have considered pledging even more than I originally did, there are some “traditions” and other parts of the general culture which I feel would violate my personal ethics.</p>
<p>Note also that there are a couple fraternities considered to be New Row that have a slightly different membership process which favors those with strong academic backgrounds.</p>
<p>Sea_tide- what is the common membership process that the new ones don’t use? </p>
<p>What “traditions” would violate your personal ethics?</p>
<p>Sig Ep uses a “Balanced Man” process to get new members instead of a traditional pledge process. This was a condition imposed by the national organization for Sig Ep to return to UA.</p>
<p>Sig Ep and some other fraternities have moved to a dry rush process which means that fraternity members cannot provide pledges with alcohol during the pledge process or they will face sanctions beyond those assessed by the legal system.</p>
<p>At the risk of beating a dead horse, I have concerns about the continued failure of most UA fraternities to integrate, the length of the pledge process (most employers spend less time assessing a candidate before offering them a paying job and probationary periods generally don’t require work significantly different from ones work after that period), institutionalized homophobia, intentional damage and/or theft of private and state property, and occasional failures to treat women as equals. None of these are specific to UA, and don’t necessarily apply to all chapters at UA or all chapters within a national organization. I appreciate the philanthropy of fraternities, including alumni donations to universities, the desire to give a small, albeit somewhat closed, community to freshmen, and emphasis on scheduling time to study. As I’ve stated before, I have many friends who are Greek and I offer my issues with some Greek organizations as a form of constructive criticism. One important thing that is taught in business classes is that one should strive for continuous improvement and search high and low for solutions to problems rather than accepting them as permanently flawed or even worse, not flawed at all. Innovative and even some more obvious solutions have been proposed and are in place at chapters throughout the US and Canada and can also be found in other non-Greek organizations.</p>