I mentioned in class while Professor Arvan was discussing cooperation among individuals that I was the social chair of my fraternity during my first three years of school. I have not written a blogpost about my experiences within the fraternity even though I have seen a lot of blog posts regarding Registered Student Organization; therefore, I want to elaborate upon how my personal reputation grew internally and externally among the fraternity, the University of Illinois' campus, and campus' around the United States.
As a freshman, I did not think that rushing a fraternity was important at all. However, after casually rushing fraternities and taking advantage of free food and free drinks and socializing around with different people. I learned that there are benefits of joining a fraternity. These benefits include networking for obtainng a job in the future, having close friends who can meet up and work on homework together, meeting up with sororities on campus at a social event, and several other benefits that a fraternity can bring to oneself. So after rushing multiple fraternities, I narrowed my list down to three fraternities. One fraternity said that after my first semester, I would become the head social chair because they saw the potential I had to grow the social side of the fraternity. The reason that I would become the head social chair after my first semester was because the sophomore was going abroad his second semester. Ultimately, I thanked the other fraternities for rushing me but joined the fraternity that offered me this position.
Once I became the head social chair, I took full advantage of the position by contacting all of the bigger social sororities on campus and inviting them over to the fraternity house for some type of an event. During my first semester, I was not able to do this as much because I wanted to be apart of the events but I did not live in the fraternity house so it was more difficult to attend the amount of events that I could have if I lived in the fraternity house. As time went on, I strategically became close friends with the sorority social chairs of sororities like Theta, DG, Gamma Phi, and Tridelt so that my fraternity friends would be able to socialize and become close with the sorority social chair's friends. After a semester of events with about a half dozen of the same sororities, my fraternity became tightly knit with these same six sororities for the remainer of my time in the fraternity, especially the 4 semesters that I was living in the fraternity house.
My fraternity friends thanked me for taking the lead in creating social bonds with several sororities to make their college experience more exiting and essentially more favorable if I did not go out of my way and take the time to always be in contact with several girls while most of the other fraternity members did not take any lead, even though when given the opportunity, they helped the social aspect of the fraternity by interacting with other sorority members. I could have "cashed-out" after obtaining the title of the social chair of the fraternity by excluding my fraternity members from consorting in the events with sorority members since the sorority members would know who I am from the initial contact I made with the sorority social chairs after explaining that I am the social chair of the fraternity. However, I took it upon myself to include other fraternity members as this would become a domino effect and everyone would benefit more by socializing and interacting with each other. Furthermore, the sorority members were also thankful of my actions to create bonds between my fraternity and other sororities so they can have exciting experiences. Finally, nationwide, our fraternity after three years raised up in the national rankings as a social fraternity, allowing my fraternity to obtain a grant for the future generations of the fraternity, which allowed for the current social chairs to realize that not "cashing-out" is the optimal action to take as the head social chair of the fraternity.
The story is interesting but I didn't completely understand after you told it what your reputation is and who is it that views you this way. Is your reputation that of an innovator? (In other words, before you were social chair, did your fraternity have tightly knit relations with any sororities or not?) Is your reputation that you are willing to reach out to people where ares are not? You said you contacted all the big social sororities. How did you do that? Was there anything difficult about it for you? Why were the sororities responsive to your contacting them?
ReplyDeleteThe other part of this is whether there is any carry over for you now. Did your behavior as social chair impact your people network in a way that has helped you find a job? Since you mention that benefit at the beginning of the essay, it might have been good to follow up on it at the end.
My reputation is that of an innovator. Before I was social chair, our fraternity didn't have tight knit relations with 5 sororities, and before that the previous social chairs only had this type of relation with 1 sorority. I went to the second biggest high school in Illinois, where I met several girls that went to the University of Illinois where I met their friends here at the University; furthermore, I met girls in my co-ed dorm, my classes, my friends, and sometimes girls contacted me because of the reputation that I built immediately. These sororities were responsive because I warmly welcomed them, introduced the girls to my friends, and became comfortable with my fraternity. I am also comfortable in the social scene so I did not view this as difficult; on the other hand, I opposed being the social chair as fun.
DeleteMy behavior as a social chair has helped me obtain interviews this semester. One of my fraternity friends who graduated works with William and Blair, and I am in the interview process with William and Blair. Another opportunity to leverage my reputation in the fraternity would be if I worked at Edward Jones as an investment advisor, as these friends of mine would view me as a trustworthy adviser.