Lessons From The 5th Year Senior

Whiskey_Ginger12 years ago

Gentlemen, I’ve been around the block a few times. Hell, at this point, I should probably own a chunk of the block. However, for many reasons, I decided to extend my stay in this magical place we call college to enjoy one final year before I graduate and they put me out to frat pasture. In that time, I’ve seen some shit and learned many valuable lessons. Lessons that I can hopefully at least put in front of your alcohol-addled eyes so you might, one day, comprehend them and avoid a few of my bigger mistakes.

Party hard, but work hard too.

We all go balls to the wall pretty much every weekend. If you aren’t, you’re probably doing it wrong. However, take a day or two out of the week to get your work done too. Failing out or graduating with a shitty GPA is not the ticket to a good job outside of college, no matter how many multinational companies your father owns or whether you have a G6 parked for your personal use at the local airport. Being a half-educated idiot with a high paying job is how you wreck economies. Don’t be that guy. Nobody likes him once they figure out who he is…unless he then writes a tell all book and goes on Oprah or something.

Never turn down decent quality sex.

This should go without saying, but I’ve seen guys turn down perfectly good girls for the dumbest reasons. Not religiously compatible? It’s fucking college. Go wild. Every girl you fuck doesn’t need to be one you’d bring home to mom. Trust me, your parents should probably never know the existence of some of these girls. It avoids uncomfortable questions like, “Where does she go to church?” and “When do we meet her?” Try explaining to your conservative parents that the girl you are hooking up with has one parent that’s atheist and the other is christian, and that they don’t give two fucks that she’s an atheist. Not a conversation you want to have. So, take the sex you get offered (unless, of course, she’s a 0, then avoid that shit like the plague) and have a blast. Basically, don’t be a pussy. Get pussy.

Go on a few last minute, wild adventures with brothers.

If you’ve ever thought of last minute road tripping to the nearest chapter to your own: do it next time, if you didn’t already. The stories I’ve heard from those nights, and the stories I have from those weekends, are my greatest experiences in college. Going to that old staple of a bar you usually frequent is fine, but sometimes you just need to see where the road takes you, because you’ll have a great time, and you might even learn something about yourself or your brothers along the way.

The wrath of a sorority scorning is the most horrifying thing known to man.

You have not lived until you have ended up on a sorority’s shit list for being “that guy” that’s had too many intimate or near-intimate relationships with a few too many of their sisters. Learn from my example: be judicious in your selection of girls by sorority, especially if they’re a chapter that prides themselves on being classy. The party girl chapters rarely give two fucks about your way more than two fucks, but even so, you can’t parade it about campus. Also, never call a sorority something derogatory in public. As much as we joke about that shit, it just makes your chapter look like a bunch of douchey shitheads that can’t be mature about anything, and sometimes those chapters change and end up being very attractive before you’ve graduated. Girls don’t forget that shit. I hear about the specific situation that fucked me over to this day, and there are only a few girls who physically experienced the situation left in that chapter.

Use your chapter for something more than your own personal kingdom of debauchery.

Our chapters are amazing resources. Use them. Don’t be that guy that spends four years or more at the bottom of a bottle of whiskey and doesn’t do shit with leadership and exec, because you’ll be wasting your time. The partying is amazing, but we’re here, ultimately, to set ourselves up to be the captains of industry and politics in this nation for the next 40 or 50 years. Let’s, at least near the end of our time in college, fucking act like it.

Hopefully there’s something useful for you to take away from this. I know I wish someone had told me a few of these things as a freshman, so I didn’t make some of the mistakes I did. I learned from them though, and I’m better off for it now. We, collectively as fraternity men, have the world by the balls. We always need to remember that, and live up to the opportunities we’re given. We’re not superior because we’re Greek, we’re Greek because we’re superior. As that much touted stat about presidents, execs, congressmen and supreme court justices will show you, it’s the Greeks that inherit the Earth.