Let's hear it!

[BigAznDaddy]

riots get out of hand fast have you seen those clips where people come in with motlove cocktails. and all the SWAT has is water cannons. cause lets admit it if cops were to fire live ammunition onto a crowd there would be major media whores coming in and mobbing the place.

i get to where your hinting at but i didn't mean live fire at all i just meant if they did use live fire then there would be major consequences. didn't mean to confuse you iago

[truste1]

Regardless, though, I haven't encountered a fraternity that I'd want to be a part of.  I know that a lot of people have fun with that kind of stuff, and I trust that I would too, but I refuse to have fun at the expense of any non-negligible part of my education.  It seems that this lifestyle involves at least a small sacrifice of the quality of my education, which I'm not willing to make.

In defense to this, fraternities require a minimum GPA to a) join and b) remain active. The all-Greek GPA on my campus is above the all-men's average. My fraternity has the second highest GPA out of the 10 social fraternities on campus. During pledging (we pledge for a semester) the school requires that all pledges have a three hour study hall every night from 7-10pm (except on the weekend). While the stereotype would have you believe that there is nothing but drinking, drugs, girls, parties, etc. involved in fraternity life...that is just not the case. If it were, so many corporate and political leaders would not be fraternity men.

edit: typo

[Sidoh]

the average gpa is meaningless to me. I spend a lot more than 3 hours a night on homework. My academic expectations and habits are significantly higher and more involved than the average college student.

[Lead]

Email from amazon:

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idiots

[Blaze]

Haha, link please!

[iago]

Haha, link please!

No link, but here's another instance.

[leet_muffin]

There was another one where Amazon suggested Planet of the Apes for a documentary on Martin Luther King

[Hitmen]

Ritual materials, dry cleaning for robes, etc.

lol

[Sidoh]

Ritual materials, dry cleaning for robes, etc.

lol

lol

[truste1]

What's funny?

[Sidoh]

What's funny?

"ritual materials" is what made me laugh.

I don't know if you read my last post, but I'd like to elaborate anyway.  I wrote the post on my iPod before class, so I didn't have the motivation to make a good argument.

While a fraternity having a high average GPA is a good thing, it isn't very meaningful in terms of academic rigor.  What are the members' majors?  A high GPA in a liberal arts major is usually much easier to obtain than it is in an engineering or natural sciences major.  What kind of courses do they take?  Are they the ones known to usually result in "easy As" or do they take more challenging courses because the topic interests them?

I kind of feel like dwelling on the argument "Fraternities have high average GPAs, therefore they are academically involved" isn't useful.  It might be useful in the general case where a person is just worried that all fraternities do is party, drink, etc, but that is not my concern.  There are academic fraternities and I never believed this was the case.  I do believe, however, that being as involved as you or many other fraternity members have been would cause my academic performance to suffer and this is exactly why I'm not interested in joining one.

I'm not trying to make a general argument.  I'm saying I'd never want to join a fraternity, not no one should ever join a fraternity.

[Blaze]

You know you'd join the Trianlge Fraternity, Sidoh.

[Sidoh]

You know you'd join the Trianlge Fraternity, Sidoh.

I guess it'd depend on how good the local chapter was.  If their ONLY goal was to help people excel in their studies, then they're my allies.

[truste1]

I understand completely where you're coming from, and it's true that fraternity life isn't for everyone. I'm offended by Rule's posts, not yours...but I'll respond anyway. Keep in mind that greek life varies from school to school, and from region to region. I am certain that I would not be interested in joining a fraternity outside of the Southeast, it's just a different way of fraternity life than the northern or western regions. (i.e. complete douchebags with gelled hair, steroid arms, and fraternity letter shirts)

One common thing though that breaks regional boundaries is that fraternity men are some of the most active and well rounded on campus. On my campus it is especially true. In the case of my own fraternity, out of 31 brothers and pledges we have several people on the volunteer fire department, a couple student senators, athletes (baseball, golf, cross country), President's Men (a handpicked group of students that represent the school at on and off campus social gatherings and galas, etc.), some from this hand-selected leadership society on campus, several people on the Student Admissions Committee (myself included, and it's a significant honor to be selected for it), one guy is in ROTC, another leads a Bible study each week, and one of our alumni from last year is now a dean of the school. I'm sure I've missed some positions, but I'm sure you get the idea. In regards to majors, I go to a small private (but still tier 1) liberal arts college. The two most popular majors on campus are Political Science and Economics (it's a school that sends kids to law and business school basically) so that's what most people study. There is a Science fraternity Alpha Chi Sigma which is only for Science majors, and they have the highest GPA but aren't considered a social fraternity (yet they still have a fraternity house and hold just as many parties as social fraternities). Not to mention my own involvement in detail, but I'm involved in several things around campus yet still (at least so far) am on top of homework and making good grades. In addition to school work and my other commitments, I'm still able to drink and mess around with my brothers on the weekends and sometimes during the week (I live in the fraternity house).

What I'm getting at is that fraternity men are men of several talents. On the weekend I like to go to a band party that either my house or another is throwing, drink, and dance with girls. It's a good way to relax on Friday and Saturday nights and not worry about Sunday-Thursday. Sure, my academic schedule and major may not be as hard as yours but I'm able to do things with my time other than school work. We get our stuff done, and it's unfair for rule to blindly stereotype a group that he knows nothing about.

[Sidoh]

You know you'd join the Trianlge Fraternity, Sidoh.

Oh, interesting.  This was founded at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  One of my buddies from work this summer was planning on going to grad school there.

I understand completely where you're coming from, and it's true that fraternity life isn't for everyone. I'm offended by Rule's posts, not yours...but I'll respond anyway. Keep in mind that greek life varies from school to school, and from region to region. I am certain that I would not be interested in joining a fraternity outside of the Southeast, it's just a different way of fraternity life than the northern or western regions. (i.e. complete douchebags with gelled hair, steroid arms, and fraternity letter shirts)

One common thing though that breaks regional boundaries is that fraternity men are some of the most active and well rounded on campus. On my campus it is especially true. In the case of my own fraternity, out of 31 brothers and pledges we have several people on the volunteer fire department, a couple student senators, athletes (baseball, golf, cross country), President's Men (a handpicked group of students that represent the school at on and off campus social gatherings and galas, etc.), some from this hand-selected leadership society on campus, several people on the Student Admissions Committee (myself included, and it's a significant honor to be selected for it), one guy is in ROTC, another leads a Bible study each week, and one of our alumni from last year is now a dean of the school. I'm sure I've missed some positions, but I'm sure you get the idea. In regards to majors, I go to a small private (but still tier 1) liberal arts college. The two most popular majors on campus are Political Science and Economics (it's a school that sends kids to law and business school basically) so that's what most people study. There is a Science fraternity Alpha Chi Sigma which is only for Science majors, and they have the highest GPA but aren't considered a social fraternity (yet they still have a fraternity house and hold just as many parties as social fraternities). Not to mention my own involvement in detail, but I'm involved in several things around campus yet still (at least so far) am on top of homework and making good grades. In addition to school work and my other commitments, I'm still able to drink and mess around with my brothers on the weekends and sometimes during the week (I live in the fraternity house).

What I'm getting at is that fraternity men are men of several talents. On the weekend I like to go to a band party that either my house or another is throwing, drink, and dance with girls. It's a good way to relax on Friday and Saturday nights and not worry about Sunday-Thursday. Sure, my academic schedule and major may not be as hard as yours but I'm able to do things with my time other than school work. We get our stuff done, and it's unfair for rule to blindly stereotype a group that he knows nothing about.

That's commendable and it seems like it is significantly different there, at least from what I've seen around campus here -- lots of douches with letter shirts and people who wouldn't surprise me if they really did just get a New Haircut.