College is on the horizon for most of the seniors graduating next Friday. For many of the seniors, however, one question remains: will they go Greek? The pros and cons are many, but the fact of the matter is that the good out-weighs the bad.

Greek life, meaning established fraternities and sororities, is a large part of the college social scene, regardless if one decides to join into it or not. At Indiana University, for example, Fraternities and Sororities make up most of the teams of the Little 500 bike race, and they are in charge of organizing the IU Dance Marathon, which raises money for Riley Hospital. Many dances and regular social events are organized and attended by Greeks, and it is almost impossible not to at least interact with the system.

Most fraternities actually exceed campus average for GPA (according to the fraternityadvisor.com), and as a Greek, one is more likely to graduate in four years or less. Greek life also offers many different connections outside of college, and has the potential to influence hiring, especially in the business sector, as 50% of the top 10 Fortune 500 companies are headed by fraternity brothers (according to nicindy.com). The most important social aspect of Greek life, however, is the social bond that one forms with one’s pledge class. Many of the friends made during this experience will last a life time, and may even influence career choices and business partners.

Greek life isn’t perfect however. Whenever 9 million barely-adults are together and rarely (if ever) supervised, there are going to be some mistakes, and some “bad eggs” will tarnish the reputation of the system as a whole. Sexual Assault has become a problem on U.S. college campuses as a whole in recent years, with certain fraternity members being kicked out of colleges, and occasionally even arrested. Unfortunately, a few crazy and irresponsible segments of the community, such as the Purdue Sigma Nu fraternity which was kicked off for hazing their freshman,, have tarnished the reputation of the whole system, leading to closings and banning on certain campuses. But there are also fraternities that have never been kicked off campus, such as the IU Fiji branch. These examples of what a fraternity should be are still sucked up into the wave of negative press, and it isn’t fair to say that the Greek system is evil and irresponsible just because of a few cases.

Greek life is what one makes it. There are the irresponsible frats, the studious frats, the involved frats…the list goes on and on. Do you mean to exclude sororities?  The reality of the situation is if one is interested in the Greek system, one just has to choose a house that represents who they are as an individual.