College Fraternities and Sororities - The High Cost of Social Acceptance

College Fraternities and Sororities - The High Cost of Social Acceptance

College students who choose to join fraternities or sororities do so because of their need for social acceptance. I am personally against fraternities and sororities. I feel that it is money spent for the purpose of “buying” friends. There are many ways to meet interesting people other than devoting all of your time and money to a club in order to do so. Perhaps the people who join these groups have low self-esteem, social anxiety, or feel that the best way to make friends in college is to pay for them. I find this issue to be interesting because there are many Greek organizations on campus that are constantly advertising and promoting themselves. Non-members have a tendency to either be annoyed or amused with this behavior. To support my thesis I have conducted surveys, interviews and experiments. Because Greek clubs are all over campus, I knew that my surveys and interviews would receive honest responses as to why people join or don’t join. I asked more in depth questions, such as the person’s opinion about the issue. I was pleased with my responses.

I conducted an experiment in my apartment as the third step in my research. I threw a party and passed out Mardi Gras beads to most of the people who attended. I was not partial to any gender. Both men and women received beads. My plan was to observe how much social acceptance affects the way people interact with one another. If my hypothesis were correct, people who did not wear beads would either feel left out and group together, or attempt to mingle with the bead wearers and get rejected.

But first, the surveys I conducted were regarding why men and women in coll...

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...t your community through fund-raisers all sound like good reasons to join. But buying your way into a club is not going to teach you important skills that you will need to know after schooling. Your “brothers” or “sisters” are not going to be with you after graduation, so again you will need to start over in making new friends. And after college there is a very limited amount of organizations where this “brotherhood” or “sisterhood” can be found.

Social acceptance is wanted everywhere. No one wants to be left empty-handed and unwanted. Although people go about getting this acceptance in different ways, people who choose to join a fraternity or sorority are lacking something in their life, whether it is self-esteem or genuine friendships. They have a need to be a part of a group, even if they may need to change their ways and conform to the organizations demands.