A Letter From Phi Mu
During the final months of my senior year of high school, there seemed to be only one thing my friends wanted to talk about: recruitment, a topic I essentially knew nothing about. Being that my mom was not in a sorority in college, the extent of my knowledge
about sororities came from the stereotypical ideas movies portray and social media posts from older girls in my high school that had gone through recruitment already. I had a million questions. What was a letter of recommendation? What do these Greek letters mean? What in the world is a “philanthropy”? Although I was obviously clueless about what being in a sorority truly entailed, there was something about potentially joining a sisterhood that fascinated me.
Feeling helpless and overwhelmed, I sought out any and every resource I could find that would prepare me for what seemed to be the most important week of my life: recruitment. I dedicated all my free-time to shopping for rush outfits, reaching out to anyone I could get my hands on for advice, and searching for alums to write recommendation letters for me, a task that felt nearly impossible in my small town. By August, I thought I knew everything you could about recruitment and was excited for the week I spent what felt like forever preparing for.
As I stood outside my first house in awe, ironically Phi Mu, I thought my heart was going to beat out of my chest. Anxious thoughts and “what ifs” were swarming through my head: what if they don’t like my outfit? Is my hair frizzy from the Louisiana humidity? What if I trip while I’m walking in? Before I knew it, my first party of rush week had begun and ended in the blink of an eye. Since then, I’ve learned a few things that I wish I would have known during my recruitment experience:
Be Yourself. I know this is very cliché and I’m positive you’ve heard it before and will probably hear it a million more times before recruitment officially begins, but I cannot fully stress the importance of this. In retrospect, I feel so silly about worrying if my outfits would be “acceptable” or if my conversations were “impressive” enough. In all actuality, it’s not about the label you’re wearing or how many impressive things you’ve scripted into a 15 minute conversation; what
matters is the quality of your conversation and your ability to connect with the chapter. Which brings me to my next piece of advice…
Follow Your Heart. Once again, cliché, but so true. The entire week of rush, you’re going to be hearing a lot of other girls’ opinions about the houses down the row and might feel torn. But the thing is, those are their opinions, not yours. I urge you to allow your opinions to hold the most weight in your decisions because at the end of the day, whatever lawn you run to on Bid Day will be your home for the next four years!
Stay Positive, Keep an Open Mind, and Trust the System. To be completely honest, some days of recruitment will (most likely) be better than others. One day you can feel on top of the world, and the next you might not be invited back to your favorite house. However, remain optimistic because I promise you, everything in recruitment has a reason. LSU’s Panhellenic Community is one of the best in the country, and one day soon you too will be part of something so much bigger than yourself!
Three years later, it is still hard for me to believe that I went from knowing absolutely nothing about Greek Life to eventually becoming the president of Phi Mu. I am forever indebted to Phi Mu for giving me 300+ best friends, countless memories, and the experience of a lifetime. I am sincerely hopeful that each one of you will find your true home away from home at LSU. And as always, Geaux Greek and Geaux Tigers!
Skylar Beasley | Phi Mu President