Sororities and Time Management

Although sororities are a great social outlet, they can also be really good for time management. The whole pledging and initiation process in itself is a huge time management learning experience. You have to learn how to make the right decisions. If you have a big paper that’s due on Monday and it’s Saturday night and a pledging activity comes up, you have to decide if you are going to go out or if you are going to stay in to write the paper. If you do go out, you have to have a plan for how the paper is going to be done. If Sunday night is the only available time, well then, prepare for an all-nighter, because that's what it may take.

Once you're initiated it gets more complicated. Now you have more flexibility about your choices; the frantic pledging process is over, so you have more time. But there are sorority events all the time, and it's easy to forget the real reason why you are in school. You won't be able to participate in everything and still keep your marks up, and it's no longer a choice of yes or no. It has changed to one of selecting which sorority activities you'll do and which you'll pass up. I've found that in order to do that, I need to make myself a timetable that extends at least a week ahead, and sometimes longer than that.

One good thing about my sorority, and I think others too, is that your grades can only go so far down the drain. Then you begin to risk losing your membership. So there are bad consequences for you before the time comes that you have actually fallen so far that you can't recover. The sorority is so much more immediate and intense than your future grades that this threat can be what brings you back to sanity. I've known that happen to quite a few people. So really, the sorority is giving you a cushion. A hard one, true, but a cushion just the same. I've known more than one person who's needed that.

So, as I said at the beginning, my sorority has helped make me better at managing my time.