If I said these last 4 years in Kappa have flown by, I'd probably be lying. In all honesty, going to chapter felt like a chore most weeks. Don't get me wrong, I've made great friends and learned so much about myself being apart of it... but it really did feel like something I
had to do.
That being said, three really great things came out of being in a sorority.
1. Freshman Year
2. Learning About Myself
3. My Internship
1. Freshman Year
I always joke that my mom said she wouldn't pay for college if I didn't joing a sorority (or at least rush). This is obviously grossly exaggerated but she did push me into going through Rush.
And I am SO glad I did. Auburn is only 2 hours away from my parents house but it might as well have been in a different country. Only a few people from my high school went to Auburn and I didn't hang out with any of them. I was friend-less. Rush and Kappa Kappa Gamma gave me an instant group of friends. I'm not sure what my Freshman year would have been like without that... there were pretty slim pickings in my dorm and classes.
2. Learning About Myself
There is a lot to be said about learning to live with others. Doing so teaches you about the nuances of relationships - what makes them tick, what strengthens them, what breaks them. Unless you're moving off to Antarctica, you will always be forced to live with others. This doesn't even have to mean literally living in the same house, when you work with people in an office you are spending a heck of a lot of time in a confined space with those people... if you don't know how to "live" with them, there will be issues. To know how to do this, you have to start somewhere. Living with girls in my sorority gave me a crash course into this. There were definitely struggles, I will never claim to be the perfect roommate, but it taught me so much about learning to live with others.
Auburn has hundreds of organizations around campus that you can get plugged into and obtain leadership positions in. I may be a bit biased here, but I think having a leadership position in a greek organization is a bit different... almost as if it had a little more riding on it, typically girls (and guys I'm assuming) seem to be more aware and effected by the choices of the leaders in these organizations. My time as treasurer taught me A LOT about my strengths and weaknesses. Organization, time management, communication, etc. etc. etc.
3. My Internship
I may be going out on a limb here giving Kappa credit for this but I promise I have a reason. Like most things in life, getting a job is 50% preparation and 50% opportunity. I fulfilled my end of the deal (preparation), Kappa, essentially, provided the opportunity. Remember how I said Freshman year wouldn't have been the same without Kappa? That year I met a group of girls that I became really great friends with near the end of the year. Being friends with these girls introduced me to another set of friends outside my sorority, one of which had a parent that worked for the company I now intern with. One day, when I was applying to any internship I could get my hands on, they mentioned their dad worked for Raytheon. Next thing you know, I'm on their website filling out an application for an internship... and, well, the rest is history.
Like I said, it might be a stretch to credit Kappa with that but if I hadn't met those new friends, who knows where I would be today... graduating without a job perhaps!
In Other News:
Just booked my flight to Orlando for after graduation... Florida here I come!
