“I’m not a frat boy, I swear!”

The first time I ever thought about fraternities was the summer before my senior year of high school. I can even remember the exact moment: at the time, I was attending MIT’s Minority Introduction to Engineering and Science (MITES) program and was laughing so hard on my way back to Simmons that I nearly threw up. You see, my friend group had a running joke where I threw on a stereotypical “surfer dude” accent, so my vocabulary would shrink down to little more than “asuh dude,”  “shred the gnar, broski,” and (quite simply) “duuuuuude.” Well, this (for some reason) inspired my friend to tell me, “You know Matt, I could definitely see you in a fraternity.” For a guy who used to struggle a lot with social anxiety, this was oddly comforting, even if I was initially appalled at the thought of joining a fraternity.

Fast-forward to my arrival at MIT, and I had totally forgotten about that little compliment - hell, as a first-gen college student, I barely even understood the concept of Rush. Once Orientation Week ended, however, I was surprised to find that I was actually excited for Rush. I mean, when you hear Rush described as a glorious seven days filled with boujee house tours, free food, and fun activities with cool upperclassmen, what’s not to like?

Funny thing about this description is that Rush actually isn’t that far off from this (ok, maybe minus the “boujee” part of the house tours - they’re fraternity houses, they aren’t going to be spotless). I basically spent the week of Rush running frantically from event to event, eating too much junk food (I missed eating veggies by day two), and checking out close to half of the fraternities at MIT. At least at the start, I wasn’t particular about joining any singular fraternity - I just wanted a group of people I felt like I could grow close to. 

Towards the end of the week (and after figuring out what in the world a “bid” was), I found myself drawn to Zeta Psi. Not only did I know a few brothers there from my time at CPW, but quite a few of the upperclassmen on my floor (@ the B1ners) were also brothers in the fraternity. I had already grown pretty close to those lads, so I decided that I was going all in on ZP. Luckily, they liked me enough to give me a bid, and the rest is history!

So what in the world should you take away from this random story? 

Maybe it’s that I have a killer surfer impression, or maybe it’s that I referred to upperclassmen as “cool” (please, never tell them that I called them that). Maybe your takeaway is that it’s alright to not have a clue what Rush is (and by extension, lots of college things in general) or that you should prepare to be overwhelmed by the diversity of the different fraternities at MIT. No matter what you choose, I do want you to remember one thing: if you decide to rush a fraternity, pick one where you genuinely like the people. I always found the term “brother” hilarious until I spent a year with my friends at Zeta Psi - now, I understand where that term comes from. They’d do anything for me, and I’d do the same for them. 

Good luck with the start of the first (virtual) semester of 2020, y’all!

- Matt