ChickSpeak

Joining a sorority can be an amazing experience to add to your life’s roster. However, it’s not all rainbows and smiles. Being an active member of a sorority requires much hard work, time and dedication and for new members, a very daunting task. Below are a few tips on how to shake off first-time sorority jitters.

Keep a planner

With your sorority’s events, socials, community service projects, philanthropy endeavors and multiple meetings squeezed in between; there will be times when you’ll feel overwhelmed by it all. Do yourself a favor, if you haven’t already, and save your sanity by purchasing a planner. A planner will help you keep track of not only your sorority business, but of personal appointments, errands, and of course, schoolwork assignments. Even if your planner’s pages look like a mess of chicken scratch and neon-colored highlighting everywhere, it is still a record of what your day’s schedule will be like, which is what matters.

Learn when to say “No”

You may be overcome with a tremendous amount of excitement for your sorority- it’s expected. However, as mentioned previously in ChickSpeak, it is important to maintain balance and learn when to say no to your chapter sisters regarding events or service projects you cannot attend or participate in. You may try to be Superwoman, but it will take a toll on you mentally and physically, if you’re not careful. Prioritizing is especially important to new sorority members because it can help set the tone for the rest of their involvement in their sorority. If you overwhelm yourself with sorority activities too soon, it will increase the likelihood of burning yourself out and wanting to stay as far away from your sorority as you can- which probably isn’t the image you had in mind before you joined.

Reach out to your older Sorority Sisters

You may be very close to the members within your own pledge class, but in order to overcome a few of those new sorority member jitters, you should branch out and spend time with your older sorority sisters, even alumnae. By doing this, you can get closer to more sisters and you can also learn about your chapter’s history- how business was conducted before, or cool traditions. By reaching out to as many of your sorority sisters as you can, you can begin to crack into true sisterhood.

Amaris Castillo is a recent graduate of the University of South Florida with a Bachelor’s degree in magazine journalism.  Her interests include independent films, chocolate and spoken word poetry. She hopes to become both a magazine editor and a respected author whose books will be studied in college writing courses long after she has passed.