Letters to the Editor: Sorority membership provides numerous benefits

Her eyebrows raised and nose wrinkled in contempt. "You're rushing?" she asks with a derisive air. "I don't want to have to buy my friends." This comment takes me a while to digest, as I've always wanted to use monetary incentives to facilitate social interaction. After thinking about it, I decided to write down my thoughts, and this letter is addressed to all you girls who don't want to buy your friends. Sororities are not about paying people to like you. Sororities are not about drunken orgies. Sororities are not about using a well-known name to give you your identity. As a freshman, my reasons for joining recruitment are clear. I want to meet upperclassmen who share similar interests, experiences and passions. I want to meet upperclassmen with radically different interests, experiences and passions, girls with whom I can laugh, talk and develop a lasting friendship. I'm planning on joining a sorority where the sisters are supportive, where I can have a network and common bond with people I ordinarily may not have met, let alone befriended. I plan on meeting people who can give me their opinion about which teachers they liked the most, which classes were the best for them and insights as to what more I can get from Duke. I look forward to being in a sisterhood where my standards and differences are seen as an integral part of who I am, not anomalies that must be ironed out. I'm excited to do community service in the name of a national organization, to get involved in ways that are not available as an individual. I am not a conformist engaged in a desperate attempt to be accepted. Recruitment involves stepping out of one's comfort zone (especially when one's comfort zone doesn't include being witty and interesting over excessively prolonged periods of time or as one door greeter put it: "The thing I don't like about rush is that I have to be nice to all of you; I hate freshman girls!"). Despite the skepticism surrounding sorority recruitment, I can realistically say that I know that all of my hopes and expectations regarding Greek life can be fulfilled.