Mandatory group selfie

Mandatory group selfie

Daniel Boonstra (20) is a self-proclaimed passionate lover and is unanimously agreed to be a 7.5 maybe a mid-8 at a push when he wears “those jeans”. He studies IBCOM at the Erasmus University and enjoys long walks on the beach. Every month, he visits a student event to shed his light on what’s hot on campus.

Sigma Delta Phi is an all-girl sorority. Now I don’t like to give in to easy stereotypes or prejudices, but not all sororities have the best reputation for being serious organisations that amount to more than nights out and drunken hook-ups. I attended the Sigma Delta Phi recruitment drink at Douwe Egberts, expecting to find a silly girl’s club comparing onesies and one direction fetishes. However, I was pleasantly surprised.

I arrived to find a diverse group of very sophisticated young women there for the purpose of ‘building personal and professional networks that outlast [their] time at university’. Apart from being very international, Sigma Delta Phi distinguishes itself from other sororities in that it is intentionally a smaller and a more exclusive group allowing members to feel more like a person and less of a number. This, according to the president, allows relationships to grow much deeper and stronger than in other groups.  One new recruit sums up the sorority as ’more sophisticated and classy: not that barbaric shit you find in other sororities’. Needless to say the irony was not lost on me.

I noticed that the second year students had done a better job at internalising the serious element of the event whilst I heard some of the first year girls discussing the very important topic of ‘cute guy distribution’ across the different international courses. The best thing I heard from a first year, was when one girl was described as being the “blonde in the [groups] rainbow”- Yes, that’s right- the “blond in our rainbow”. I do love freshmen.

The organisations smaller approach to community building lends itself to more creativity in regards to structure and tradition. Another representative said that whilst other sororities depend on scripts and tradition, each New Year in Sigma Delta Phi has to forge its own path. This impressed me, right up until I heard the next ground breaking suggestions: ‘let’s start a yoga club’ and ‘we should do the mandatory group selfie right now’. Well done ladies, you’ve really broken all the moulds.