All I Ever Really Needed to Know

Despite all the warnings to the contrary, the omnipresent "let's be more intellectual" propaganda, and the personal misgivings, in the Spring of 1996 I did something I never thought I'd do-- I joined a fraternity. Now, a year and a half later, not only do I not regret joining, I am awfully glad I did. I honestly believe I have learned as much from being in a fraternity as I have from classes at Dartmouth, so I figure heck, it's time to share with you, the reader, a part of fraternity life you never see: the educational side.

1. How to take care of a home. With few exceptions, frats are privately owned, which means that the owners (the brothers) have to take care of their physical plant. Although some fraternities do a better job than others, they all have to do it. Basically, if you ever wanted to know about repairing, cleaning, contracting to build/remodel, or anything to do with keeping up a building, you can learn it in a fraternity.

2. People are lazy. Though the brothers in a house need to maintain their house to prevent it from getting so bad it scares away the average garbage rat, it is a very difficult task to motivate people to clean and repair. They would much rather sleep or watch TV. Who wouldn't?

3. Most people are good at heart. I came into my house not knowing any of the brothers. For the most part, I was not acquainted with most of the people who have joined since. Once I actually got to know them, I met a lot of good people and made a lot of friends I would never have made otherwise.

4. People love stereotypes. This is something that has amazed me. Here we are at Dartmouth, land of PC, candlelight vigils, and intelligent, highly educated individuals, yet we love to stereotype every group on campus. Fraternities are definitely not left out of this. There are the generalized stereotypes about frats, which include their being nasty smelly places wherein lurk all the heavy drinkers and evildoers on campus. (Unfortunately, we often live up to the smelly part). Additionally, each house has an image, a character which the Dartmouth population-at-large believes defines the place. My house, Gamma Delt, is popularly known to be a football house. This was made more clear to me than ever last week when I told someone I was in Gamma Delt and they asked me what position I played on the football team. I suppose the question would have made some sense if I wasn't built like someone who had recently escaped a famine. Even Dartmouth students see what they think they know, not what is clearly presented before them.

5. People don't respect things that are free. We all love free things. With me for instance, if I hear the words "free" and "food" in the same sentence (see famine reference above) I will come a runnin'. Never in your life will you see such Carl Lewis-like speed. Once I finish eating free food, however, I will do stupid things like start food fights, and generally be wasteful. Why? Well, it's free, so why not? The same goes with fraternities. Though some will be sickened by my saying so, we offer a service of sorts to Dartmouth students: a floor to dance on, refreshments, and a free party every weekend. As a reward for this, half the drinks end up on the floor or in the trash, items are stolen, and houses are vandalized. It is a "tragedy of the commons" scenario played out at a tangible level.

6. People act unpredictably in groups. Anyone who has been to Rush knows what I'm talking about. At a personal level you may know group members well, but once they begin acting in concert, their actions are chaotic and unpredictable, leaving you to wonder if you really know the individuals at all.

7. How to deal with "The Man." The powers that be (the College) require a good half billion rules and regulations that houses must live up to. Working with the college bureaucracy offers a sometimes frightening sample of what it will be like to deal with government and corporate bureaucracies.

8. One wrong erases a thousand rights. A house can do everything by the book for years, keeping the place tidy, not violating college rules, doing community service work, and none of it will ever be noticed. If one brother makes a mistake by getting in a fight, or a college policy is broken, that is what everyone remembers and what comes to define the house.

9. Everyone wants to be loved. I figured it would be best to end on the warm fuzzy one, so here it is. Everybody wants acceptance from a group, from friends, a significant other, and just generally to be loved. Frats offer that to a certain extent in the form of a refuge from schoolwork and worries in a "where everybody knows your name" atmosphere.

So there you have it. The other half of my education at Dartmouth. The perfect complement to the readin', writin', and 'rithmetic learning of classes, and one worth every penny.