Recruitment Day 1: Water Parties
You made it, you’re here at Panhellenic Recruitment. That’s a big thing. An even bigger thing considering the various other accomplishments in your wake. High school graduation? Acceptance to the best university in the whole world? Fitting most of the items you’ve accumulated in your 18, 19, 20 years of life into your new showboat-sized home?
So before this fast-paced, multi-round, whirlwind of a day begins, step back for a minute, take one of those deep breathes featured in a Febreze commercial and know that you are here for a reason and that you as an individual are valued and loved immensely by the teachers, mentors, friends and family that helped you get to this day.
Maybe you’ve arrived here with perfect knowledge of the process ahead. The names of each sorority house, the location of each of those houses on Lumpkin or Milledge, their founders, their hand signs, their house moms are tattooed to your brain. Maybe you, the Recruitment Pro, planned each outfit for each day (with backups for rain and backups for those backups), equipped with a mom-crafted tool kit filled to the brim with every thing from tweezers to a handheld fan for the sticky sweaty Georgia heat.
Or maybe, like me, you’re pre-Recruitment accolades include dressing yourself in complete darkness while your not-rushing roommate sleeps and learning how to quietly sound out the Greek letters fixed at the top of each house to avoid making a fool of yourself while inside.
Whether you are essentially majoring in Recruitment or are just learning a little bit more each day about the process, I’ve made a list of a few vital tips that will help any PNM on their first day of recruitment:
Go with the comfy, flattering ‘fit: wear something that will work in the heat. Wear something that makes you feel confident. Wear something that represents what you are all about, not something that will impress someone else. If that means seven outfit changes to only end up wearing the first dress you put on, so be it. Go with your gut, girlfriend; it has gotten you this far!
It’s gonna get LOUD: girls will be chatting before you get in the house and then there will be plenty of singing and chanting whilst in the house and more chatting with the sweet sisters in each house. Don’t sweat it! Well you may be sweating because of the unavoidable heat, figuratively don’t sweat the volume! Embrace the experience. A good attitude about the experience itself will help you get through it. Recruitment doesn’t happen every day.
Make friends, or at least conversation: if you make eye contact with another nervous PNM, follow the signs and strike up a convo. They are just as anxious about the mystery that is formal recruitment. Carrying on a conversation will diffuse anxiety and make the time move faster. I wish I was as fearless starting conversations on Day 1 as I was on Day 4.
Collect the flyers: Reps from local boutiques will be camped out along Milledge giving out coupons and flyers. Make sure to snag some while semi-sprinting to your next round.
You are great: Really. I’m so excited to meet and know as many of you as I can. And I know the other 90-something Gamma Chis want to too! Whatever happens during Recruitment, you will never stop being you. Find comfort in that and look for girls that want to celebrate you everything that you are.
The process is an adventure that is sometimes hard and sometimes fun, but ultimately very rewarding. You also have an ultra rad group of girls that want to help you take on Recruitment 2016! I can’t wait to see all of your beautiful faces!
Written by Meredith, Gamma Chi
