Response to Brady's Blog
Before I respond Im just gonna say my point of view is much different, due to the fact that I have pledged and am currently a brother of a fraternity. The argument that you pay for friends is ridiculous. You pay to be able to do things with your friends and to meet new people who maybe you would never of met. We pay dues so we can go to a beach for a weekend with our friends. Especially at firman due to our rules if you want to have a party you have to have it at a off campus house. Someone has to pay for that house so we do. It sucks but at Furman, this is the atmosphere we live in. So yes we have to pay money to be in a fraternity but it is not paying for friends, it is paying to do things with friends.
Secondly you mention the pledging process, the pledging process is hard I will admit but it is for the sake of brotherhood. I can genuinely say I know 70 other guys extremely well. It is so time consuming because we only have 8 weeks to learn about all the members in the fraternity. Think of it like teammates. You spend tons of time with your team and get know them. It is the same thing with pledging, its so you get know the members of the fraternity and your pledge brothers.
Overall you just need to think as a fraternity as a team. Just like your teammates our brothers are there to support us through everything. Help us when we are down and have fun with each other. Most kids in college never get a chance to be part of a team and a fraternity is a adequate substitute for that. Yes pledging sucks but once you get through it everyone will say that it is worth it.
Great point Stump. I just commented on a similar topic on Tucker's blog. I have in the past made a lot of fun of Fraternities, but the more I look into it the more I see the traits of a sports team in another form. Many members of Greek life are committed, they work towards a certain goal, try to do positive things in the community, make friends as well as “brothers”, and have some fun while doing it. Sounds a lot like why people play sports and why many people play on teams to begin with. I would have to assume through all the similarities that Greek life and sports are really not so different after all, and that could be why many athletes are members of fraternities and sororities.
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