What a RUSH: A Look Into Greek Life Fraternities

It’s the first week of the new college year at UCI and all the clubs and organizations have come out to booth and recruit new students. This week is usually the main recruiting event for most organizations. However, one group of organizations on campus—Greek Life—has a more unique set of recruiting events that last seven weeks. Greek life continuously recruits during not only the first two weeks, but the process lasts for most of the quarter. This process can be split into two main sections: Rushing and Pledging.

Rushing usually happens during the first two weeks of the quarter where a fraternity hosts social events for students interested in joining so they can meet the rest of the guys. The fraternities also increase their activity on campus to attract the attention of new students by boothing and handing out flyers to any students that may be interested in their events. Events can range from eating opportunities like a steak night to fun activities like laser tag. During events, the main goal is for new students to show if they have the leadership, communication, and moral values that the fraternities hold dear to upperclassmen in the fraternity.

After so many Rush events where you get to know members, the members can decide whether or not they want to give you a bid to become a fraternity pledge. That’s when Pledging begins for new members. During this time they have to learn about the fraternity’s history, its members, and learn to reinforce its values.

This process takes a lot of time and energy because of how many events and projects someone interested in rushing and pledging has to participate in, so time management is key; however if you can master that, joining a fraternity opens up huge opportunities by exposing you to almost every niche of people found at UCI.

Then when the time comes a little after halfway through the quarter, it is deemed that you are ready to cross. Crossing is when you are initiated into a fraternity as a full member and are no longer a pledge. Welcome to the brotherhood!