For someone who knows nothing about fraternities and sororities, I was extremely overwhelmed at the Meet the Greeks event on September 14th. I should have expected a massive amount of students but for some reason, I didn’t. I swiped into the event at the event room doors and only took two steps forward before stopping again. Where was I even supposed to begin?

I looked around and saw groups of guys dressed very formally in ties and suits. I saw other guys in big varsity jackets with Greek letters on the chest and sleeves. Girls walked around in matching outfits and high heels, wearing v-neck shirts with Greek letters across the front. I recognized these people as the current fraternity and sorority members and everyone else, wearing their everyday clothing, to be the other students. I did not expect this to be such a planned event in terms of preparation. Tables lined the walls of the room with posters, big Greek letters with sparkles and paint and groups of students surrounding these tables. The fraternities and sororities that were represented at the Meet the Greek event were really trying to grab people’s attention with the flashy decorations and big Greek letters decked out in paint.

The current Greek life members tried their best to make their way around to the other students around their tables but I noticed, and experienced, that they failed at that task. The amount of students not involved in a fraternity/sorority versus the amount of current Greek life students was overwhelming and made it nearly impossible for some students to get information on the fraternities and sororities that they were interested in. Personally, I did not enter college with the mindset that I would seek out a sorority, so this event was not one I was dying to go to. I just personally do not feel that I have the time and passion for such a commitment, but I figured it would not hurt to see what Greek life was about and maybe get some information about it and find that desire to join a sorority.

I walked around with my roommate after we observed the busy room and began walking towards the back where more of the sorority tables were located. Just as I had observed, there were not enough current Greek life members to accommodate to the amount of other students. I was rather disappointed with the Meet the Greeks event but I also did not have every high expectations for this event in the first place, considering I wasn’t real interested. I would have preferred if there were more current Greek life students to accommodate for the number of new students who were interested in joining. I think that I would have found a better connection if they maybe had fraternities one night and sororities another night so there was more room to spread out the tables and more room for the students to roam. I also felt that when I was getting more information about the different sororities, I was getting information about things I did not understand. They talked about dues and philanthropies which I did had a hard time wrapping my head around.

Overall, I think that the Meet the Greeks event would have been more efficient in recruiting interested students if the room was not as packed and if the current Greek life members were better at recognizing students standing at their tables and took the initiative to talk to them. I would suggest that the fraternities met in one room and the sororities met in another room or maybe they met on different nights. There was just too big of a turnout of interested students for the current Greek life members to efficiently speak to the interested students about their organization.