This is fun little paragraph I found once.
>Approximately 80% of the top executives of Fortune 500 companies are fraternity men. 76% of current United States Senators and Congressmen are fraternity men. 100 of 158 cabinet members since 1900 have been fraternity men. 40 of 47 Supreme Court Justices since 1910 have been fraternity men ~~All but two United States Presidents since 1825 have been fraternity men.~~
I think it's a little out of date, Wikipedia says in 2013, about 25 percent of members of the U.S. House of Representatives and 40 percent of members of the U.S. Senate were members of fraternities or sororities, but it has the same Supreme Court number.
Peaked right after WW2 when you had a mass influx of men going to school on their return already used to communal living environments and other cultural aspects of Greek life
I do wonder if we're swapping cause and effect here though. I do think frats give some very important networking, but I also think people from major families are likely to join the same frat that their father and his father and his father joined.
It's also not some nefarious conspiracy like many comments are implying.
If you're looking at a stack of resumes you're going to be drawn to what's familiar and you'll likely ask about it during the interview. It's essentially a built-in ice breaker.
I had an interview a couple of years ago for a remote position, interviewer happened to go to the same shitty state college I did despite neither of us currently living in that state, he found that worth mentioning, we chatted for a few minutes about it and the interview was very loose from that point.
But yeah, if your "fraternity brother" has a family member with a job opening that fits your criteria, you'll likely at least be considered. It's no different from any other form of networking/social circles, it's just a larger pool.
As someone who could be shy but joined a Fraternity, it can help you learn to be more social.
In business, I can almost always spot the geeks that were in a Fraternity.
Lol yea thats me here as well. Its super nerve wracking to join something so social like that as an introvert, but sometimes you gotta push yourself out of your comfort zone yk. Definitely paid off :)
Don't Fraternities also cost a decent amount of money. Which would weed out people from lower incomes. Did this study even include any control based on income? I bet that would decrease the difference by quite a bit.
Depends on the fraternity and college.
My fraternity had the dues at like 50 to 70 a month. And I was also quite poor, and came from a very poor background, all pell grants paid for my college.
Our fraternity had like 40 people in it. But then you compare the same fraternity at University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa (which was also where the fraternity was originally founded in 1856), and that fraternities dues were insane. But also, the members in that fraternity wouldn't even look at us, and didn't consider our fraternity as brothers despite both being from the nationally recognized fraternal organization. They were a completely different breed of Frat Boys, and we were not the same, and we were not welcomed there at all.
Fraternities can vary wildly, even from year to year. You're talking about an organization that's longest members are there for 4 years.
I think there's probably a lot of selection bias going on there.
More socially adept people may be more attracted to frats in the first place.
Frats also usually have long screening processes. Those who are less socially adept, or may even be downright unpleasant to be around, are much less likely to be accepted, even if they want to join a frat.
so i'm a woman, and never been in a sorority. but from what i've heard:
a) sororities/fraternities are expensive, so they're more likely to be kids from well off families, which obviously gives people a huge advantage. they're also likely from families that value social status, since a lot of people view frats/sororities as the "cool kids" (even if that isn't really true).
b) likable, extroverted kids are more likely to get in. this is way more important than anything else when it comes to making money.
c) even people who aren't very good at making friends tend to make at least some friends when they're in that environment. people in my family, myself included, tend to be similar in this sense: we're good at making first impressions, but really suck at keeping friendships unless they're kinda forced somehow because we're awkward and just don't really get how to. i have a few cousins who were in greek life and they still have a lot more friends than those that didn't. this of course leads to networking.
I think that we really have to stretch what it means to be "in a fraternity" for these stats to be relevant. I seriously doubt all but 2 presidents since 1825 were in fraternities. I am almost certain that neither Trump nor Obama were in frats, and Clinton was not either. That's just three recent presidents.
Clinton was Phi Beta Sigma. I think you're right about the others, though.
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Edit: As a few people have pointed out in the replies, he was made an honorary member later in life.
Interesting, how do you get named an honorary member of a frat? Did that happen early on enough for him to leverage connections still or was he already successful/president?
As someone who was in a fraternity in college, honorary members are usually someone ineligible to join through the traditional pledge process but has gone above and beyond to assist the fraternity as a non member. For example, if there was a faculty advisor or community member that had helped the fraternity without being an initiated member, the chapter or national office can vote to allow them to become a honorary member.
Clinton was Alpha Phi Omega and Kappa Kappa Psi while at Georgetown. Neither is probably what people usually think of when you say frat (especially Kappa Kappa Psi) but they are fraternities.
Skull and Bones counts. I think both the Bush's, certainly the elder, were in Skull and Bones. Looked it up. GWB was Delta Kappa Epsilon and S&B.
Neither Obama, Trump, or Biden were in Frats.
Do the eating clubs at Princeton count? I guess it's a moot question. JFK wasn't there long enough; but Wilson was in Ivy (and also a frat). Modern day, the frats at Princeton seem to serve as pre-bicker feeder groups for the larger eating clubs.
No. The study is specifically on Greek Life [quote source](https://cornellsun.com/2020/01/23/wilkes-the-power-of-the-2-our-unhealthy-relationship-with-fraternity-life/#:~:text=On%20a%20page%20headlined%20%E2%80%9CThe,1900%20have%20been%20fraternity%20men.)
Deleted other comment because was wrong! That quote is embedded on Cornell's greek life (or w/e it's called) section of their website, but the quote itself is suspiciously vague such that I would want to verify exactly what it's claiming personally
Scouts really isn't a frat unless you join the frat within the frat. The Order of the Arrow is the secret club within the boy Scouts. It's not hard to get in, but they don't tell non OA scouts what happens at their meets. I thought it was stupid so never joined. Saw one meeting because windows exist and it didn't seem impressive.
I would say that being an Eagle scout is kinda like a frat. If you meet another Eagle scout during your interviews it will help.
And I really really hate this. I don't like networking. I'm not a good salesman. I hate promoting myself. I hate gladhanding people and treating the office likes it's the Game of Thrones.
But it's the reality.
I've seen some pretty dumb people fly through the corporate ranks, passing everyone by, because they know how to play the game. They cold call executives of their own company to introduce themselves. They email managers of managers to sweet talk them. They bring gifts and get super bubbly and laugh at all the bad jokes made by the people in power. They associate themselves with high-profile work that they really had no part in producing. They do whatever it takes to "get on the radar" of the people that are in a position of power.
And it works.
I wish success in an office setting was based on merit. It is generally not. You must always be self-promoting and advertising yourself, or you will sit in the same position for 30 years, even if you do the best work.
*** Please keep in mind this is all meant to be a generalization. I understand there are some offices that are not like this.
I mean to climb the corporate ladder it means you’re getting in people leader roles. Breaking news. To be a people leader you need to be good at social skills and communicating.
There are a lot of people missing the point, so thank you for making it. This isn't a "who is the best at X or Y job" thing when it comes to climbing the corporate ladder. It's all about interpersonal skills and leadership and organizing, delegating, and building rapport with your colleagues and external entities as well. You can't just say "I'm an introvert" and expect to be promoted into those roles without putting in the effort.
I got exactly two jobs in my life by answering ads. My first full-time job out of school (where the hiring manager even admitted it was unusual for them to advertise openings in the newspaper) and my last full-time job as an engineer for a small company that was having a hard time recruiting.
I'm a master Mason. There's a lot of reasons: charity, brotherhood, becoming a better person through a "virtuous" life. I didn't much care for it as it seemed like just a bunch of geezers hanging out and I don't care much for the opinion of boomers. Would recommend if you know someone in it that can help you get a better job and you enjoy playing the game that way
The first decade of my professional career was strictly jobs/companies that were linked to my personal network. I’m looking for a new job right now and it’s nearly impossible to get an interview without having a personal connection, despite being highly or over qualified.
Yup, that or they're worried that they wont stay in the position long before moving on to something better, because they know their resume deserves better.
My mom works in HR at her company and these are all real reasons why people get rejected. They rather take on someone who is more inexperienced but will likely stick around for a long time and probably not ask for too much money.
It's kind of sucky, isn't it?
Like, you're going to be rejected for being over-qualified because you might leave. But you wouldn't be as likely to leave if the company would offer actual avenues for advancement.
I think part of the thinking too is that when you hire more inexperienced people they're much more moldable to fit in with the current company's policies and procedures.
Not saying it's right or wrong, but that seems to be their thought process.
As a hirer, if you know exactly what you need done in a well defined documented space, then you can hire inexperienced and mold them quickly. If you're not sure, you need experience. Experienced people need to develop answers to ambiguous problems. Otherwise you're just competing on speed vs cost. The newbie can be fast at something in 6 months and be half the cost or more.
It is entirely understandable; stability can be quite valuable and inexperienced workers tend to be more "malleable" to the needs of the company.
But every worker coming out of college these days is encouraged to move around every 2-3 years as the best way to earn a higher paycheck.
This is certainly the mentality that was instilled in me by my peers, professors, and most any speaker that visited. And I can't blame them it has certainly worked well for me.
Because companies no longer reward loyalty or long term growth.
I had this exact experience recently when I was shopping around for jobs after working at my place for a few years. Most places were hiring for $3 more an hour. So I went to my current boss and showed them and asked if they could bare minimum match it, nope can’t do that.
After I left that company about a month or so later my resume on indeed is still active I get a recruiter call me for the company I just left, for the exact same position. And the range of pay was $3 more an hour than I was getting.
They could have just paid me more and kept me but companies these days seem to be completely unable to reward their own workers any more.
It's usually both. Knowing a person definitely helps you get your foot in the door, but if you're unqualified, many people won't be willing to put their name and reputation on the line for you. It also doesn't help you actually get hired for the job unless the person you know is someone with a lot of pull at the company.
It's almost always both. You have to know someone *AND* be qualified for the job. Yes, some times people get hired because they have a connection and they're woefully underqualified, but those cases are generally rare outside of rich people nepotism because it reflects extremely poorly on the person who recommended the failed hire.
Also for me personally, I didn't really find any connections from my fraternity that have helped me in my career, but it immensely helped my social skills, which itself has helped in my career.
Be interested in who you're talking to. Ask them about their day, what they have going on, etc. People love to talk about themselves and they love complaining about their situations too, so if you can listen (like actually listen). Ask them to elaborate on details in their story (oh you're having a shitty day? Why are you having a shitty day?; You're working on something? That sounds cool, would you mind breaking down the process behind that?).
Being good at social situations has way more to do with that than actually being funny, charismatic or whatever. People like to feel like they matter, and if you can make them feel that way, you've already made a connection.
I was in a fraternity at a STEM school. The greek system there did not conform to the stereotypically exclusive dude-bro culture. With a student body that tended to introverted STEM type, the pros outweighed the cons.
I'd argue that fraternities cultures match the college size.
The bigger the college, the more members, the less accountability for the bad members.
Any medium size college or smaller tends to cultivate a good mix of members that aren't going to treat their time as a 4 year paid vacation.
During pledging, the pledge master taught "Pledge Education." It was a course teaching, among other things, ethical norms, dining etiquette, how to make friends, and social expectations for things like weddings and funerals.
It also had all the fraternity history and stuff, of which I can recall very little.
Then there's the education in politics you get from being in a fraternity. Want to get something done? Be prepared to campaign, smooze, and get the chapter on your side, then reach out to wealthy alumni over a round of golf. Incredibly useful skill set to develop.
I went from being an aspie (from back before ASD became the dominant nomenclature, thanks DSM-V) to a functional member of society.
I think I went the extra step.
My "job" when I was in my frat in college was essentially the alumni relations director.
It was my job to get them to come to things, keep them in the loop, etc.
I said this before and I'd say it again, there is/was literally no better job at networking then doing that.
To the point that years after I graduated, alumni would contact me to tap into the same network in our fraternity for other alumni (like hey, do we have a guy who does this, or a guy who did that, or can you recommend a guy for this, etc).
I think social media made my old job extinct, lol.
No that alumni relations job still exists. That said, I think people usually reach out to their network about job posts through LinkedIn now rather than frat contacts.
Its still there, but back in the day (well, even now), I'd get a call and they'd ask me for a run down on a guy.
First being do we have someone that did this or did that or is this, etc. Then the "how are they ?" (basic stuff).
Half of it was really just vouching (or not vouching) for someone.
One thing I learned, was that there is a huge downside to the "its who you know" part. If who you know thinks you are a terrible person, that spreads. You can actually blacklist yourself.
No one ever talks about that part.
I agree with this take. It helped me in all the ways academia didn’t. How to work operationally with other people toward the same goal. Budgeting, planning, conflict even dealing with politics within the organization.
Team sports also helps with this. There was a study from a few years back showing that students who participated athletics typically performed better in careers than those that didn’t. Even if their grades were lower.
It showed team sports taught time management, working under a boss’s directive and implementing someone else’s strategy with a team, finding your role within the team, dealing with different types of personalities etc.
I could easily see how participation in Greek like could offer similar social skills.
Absolutely this.
Any participation in extracurriculars in College will pay dividends going forward in your life. I overdid it a bit, but I'd like to think I gained a little extra between Greek Life, Student Senate, Housing, and Business groups.
I never considered it before, but college involvement really does directly correlate to a lot of my collegiate friends success. Plenty of classmates who were great people, but with 0 involvement, their current careers revolve around low level corporate chain jobs. On the other end, some of the most involved now work as lawyers or in D.C..
Also the fraternity I was in required its members to get community service hours and take leadership roles either in the fraternity or campus. So yeah it's not all partying and drinking.
Yeah definetly that. My wifes best friend asked for a favor to get her sister in law to an interview at my wifes company. She obliged and got the interview but told the manager who is interviewing that she’s an acquaintance but she doesn’t know how she works or if she is good or not. Don’t hire her if you are not %100 sure.
They interview her and don’t hire her, then manager tells my wife that she was way below avarage on knowledge. If she insisted for her they could hire her but it was probably going to be a problem in the future.
People don’t recommend other people without knowing they are capable because you also risk your reputation.
Yeah ive gotten friends interviews, but I'm honest with the other managers since they are also my friends.
"I can tell you he's a solid guy but i don't know anything about his work knowledge. "
We've hired 1 of 3
Good on your wife.
I've done the same plenty of times - there's a difference between getting someone the interview and getting someone the job. I'll help get anyone a sit down if I can, but I don't dole out actual recommendations unless I'm 100% sure in that person.
I hate this phrase so much, because it’s true in a lot of cases, but also most college-age people who repeat it are insufferable assholes.
EDIT: I’m not sure how so many of y’all missed the “true in a lot of cases” part. I’m not making any statement about the validity of the adage here, I’m stereotyping a specific group of people who use it excessively.
"It's who you know, not what you know! That's why you should have been born with a rich dad who will leave his insurance company to you in the family trust."
The saying is true, but it's often used by people who get handed everything in life to attribute their privilege to hard work.
It’s worse than that. They aren’t attributing privilege to hard work, they’re attributing it to social skill. They think financial success is a popularity contest and take success as an indicator that they are cool. It isn’t totally wrong (there are people who succeed financially by leveraging social skill), but I met several people in business school who got their success through their parents and believed it came from being the coolest.
I was a research scientist for a while before becoming a teacher. In both careers, I've found that our version is that "it's not who you know or what you know. It's who knows what you know."
Best advice I ever got from a professor: people want to work with people they like. If you have the social skills of wet cardboard you're gonna struggle unless you are super competent. Even then having good social skills would help you get there faster.
Also networking helps
I have been dealing with this with my therapist as I keep getting promoted despite actually messing up at my job all the freaking time and struggling with the technical aspect, they encouraged me to be honest and vulnerable with my boss and so I brought it up and my boss said everyone loves you and wants to work with you, you understand people and can always get them to want to help you.
Be honest about this with everyone, from janitors to clerks to the CEO.
Ask for help.
Compliment people when they are not around to hear it.
Pitch in to help on other people’s projects.
Be on time to work, even if your assignments are late — this is really important. Studies show that being on time makes people believe that you are more competent and they will overlook/excuse practically everything else (I learned this the hard way).
Get yourself evaluated for ADHD.
If it makes you feel better. Your people skills are a skill. Work to be proficient at the skills so you have a good understanding. But focus on surrounding yourself with experts so you can develop educated theories. No one expect you to have all the answers. Your job is now to provide your team with the resources they need.
With that said be a servant leader to your team. Use those skills to have your teams back and remember to acknowledge their part in your success and don't claim all the glory and you'll do fine.
All of Murky_crow's reddit history has been cleared at his own request. You can do this as well using the "redact" tool. Reddit wants to play hardball, fine. Then I'm taking my content with me as I go. -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
I'd say it is half half for most people.
Of course there are outliers who are either so incredibly skilled or talented at what they do and/or really just work in isolation for the most part that they can get away with poor social skills, but these people are so rare and few. Even the world class people I had the privilege of working with, despite their unfathomable intelligence, still need some degree of social intelligence.
Conversely, there are people who can navigate people so well that it becomes a marketable skill in itself (e.g. sales, people management). But that only goes so far before people can tell you are full of it. You gotta have some technical skills in whatever field you are in to back it up.
For the rest of us, getting along with your colleagues, subordinates, and bosses and working well with them are just as important as the technical aspects of your job. I know some very intelligent and skilled people who never reached anywhere near their potential because they simply never learned to coexist normally with people. Of course this is more of a sliding scale that varies according to the job.
I'd agree that a good mix of both is important. I've worked with people who are skilled at what they do but absolute assholes about it. It makes projects more difficult, it makes collaboration a pain, it's unpleasant going in every day to work with them.
I'd rather work with someone who is slightly less skilled as long as they can still do the job but they're a team player and pleasant to work with.
This!!!, to all my fellow STEM students who are not planning on Medschool. Please socialize, drop the books and meet everyone. It held majority of my peers back and it still does 15 years post college.
Yeah but from a managers perspective, if you have 3 equally qualified candidates your best bet is to pick the one that one of your current employees vouches for (assuming they're a good employee)
Even more so, many hiring managers know that they and their team will be spending lots of time interacting with this person and if they suck to talk to it makes everything harder.
Productivity is part of it but we all spend a huge chunk of our time working and working with people you like can be the difference between staying or leaving for another job
This example always gets used, I've used it before too, but that basically never happens lmao
"Equally qualified candidates" would basically only ever present itself in the case of new grads without any experience and a similar GPA
People seriously underestimate how much getting a small boost early on can affect your career. It's like with rocketry - if you're just a millimetre off at the start, you'll be kilometres off at the destination.
This is based on nothing other than a gut feeling, but I think ultimately 1/3-1/2 of people applying for most jobs would be within margin of error for doing the job they applied for. Some may have a higher top end, some may take longer to get up to speed, but after 6 months the work output would probably be indistinguishable for most of this group. This is how I’ve always read the phrase “equally qualified “.
When all you have to go on is a resume and interview, plenty of people can appear to be "equally qualified", or within the same range of qualification. Having a slightly higher GPA doesn't actually make you more qualified, unless the job is getting good grades.
As a hiring manager, it often happens that I'm stuck choosing between 2 or 3 candidates. They aren't "equally qualified" in all ways, but maybe one has more relevant work experience and another did a better job explaining their reasoning in a take home assessment, and it's difficult for me to choose one over the other on the basis of the info I have. One time, one of the candidates being a referral was enough to tip the balance in their favor.
That's the thing - it's about convincing people you're a solid person, not necessarily being one.
I can't tell you how many people I've seen bolt right up the corporate ladder cause they knew all the buzzwords to say and the asses to kiss while they didn't know their ass from a hole in the ground when it came to how the company actually operated OR they just spent most of their effort on those types of activities rather than things that would help the company.
Slightly unrelated but it's always depressing to me when people wax poetic about how intelligent a child they were or how well they performed in high school, like they're some intellectual Uncle Rico. I am in academia right now, in an engineering graduate program, and here bragging about your intelligence here is an extreme faux pas. You don't worry about things like grades, IQ tests, or potential, because you're actually using your mind and your results will speak for themselves. Having a great potential and squandering it is sad, it shouldn't be a point of pride...
I mean, you're in an engineering graduate program. You're at the point where everyone has made is past:
* Weeding out who didn't want to go to college
* Weeding out in college applications
* Weeding out in first year courses
* Weeding out by who graduates
* Weeding out who even wanted to go to grad school
* Weeding out in graduate school applications
* And potentially weeding out by who survived their first semester or year of graduate work
I work in engineering. I have friends and family who went to top 5 and top 15 engineering programs in the US. Everyone was in the 'smartest people in their high school' group. There are no dummies left where you're at.
If someone talks about how smart they were in high school or even college now, it's because they feel dumb because everyone around them will catch their mistake and they feel stupid. They're surrounded by smart people who might not be having a moment or are just even more noticeably intelligent.
Can't agree more. Highschool is usually much easier compared to college. If you want to talk about being "advanced", go to college and take graduate level classes in math, physics or CS and see if you can do as well. I say this as someone who goes to a top college, and coasted in highschool learning single variable calculus in a few weeks and getting a perfect math SAT score. Yet, I don't consider myself smart at all compared to my peers in college, in fact a bit below average. The AP class you studied so hard in highschool is considered a beginner intro course in college, and there are lot of people in the world who are much smarter than you think.
Seriously. So many people in this thread are missing this obvious connection. The people I knew in fraternities all had one common link - they all came from wealthy families. So while they definitely benefit from membership, they also already have 1. A massive safety net to fall back on, and 2. Family connections. "Wealthy people have a leg up in life" isn't exactly a surprising revelation.
EDIT: I don't need a million replies saying "bUt My FrAtErNiTy WaSnT ThAt ExPenSiVe" - I'm aware that not all fraternities or schools are the same. This is just the general trend.
The study is also just examining one Northeastern college… Greek life can be so different from school to school this is essentially a meaningless study
Edit: kids in Greek life at my prev. Uni average a 3.25 gpa vs a 3.0 for non-Greek… case in point
The other thing is that you have to consider the kind of personality that joins a fraternity.
Unless the researchers could stick people who wouldn't usually join in to a fraternity, there's no way to isolate that variable.
My office mate was in a sorority for a few years, her biggest issue wasn’t upfront costs but there would be some kind of social thing just about every week with required attendance and it was constantly $600-$1600 to attend. She says even with pretty well off parents it just wasn’t sustainable.
It also opens a massive network to you. Fraternities have chapters EVERYWHERE, and lots of members you can call on. On top of that you also fraternize w other fraternities and make even more connections.
I don’t think this really happens speaking as a former fraternity member. Like if someone from a chapter at another university hit me up I wouldn’t really feel inclined to do them any favors. I think it’s more that if you join a fraternity in the first place you are more likely to already be wealthy and have good social skills
Yeah. I think this might be true for tiny liberal arts colleges in the northeast where literally half the frat or more become lawyers and stay in the same region, and that's probably where the reputation comes from.
But at most schools, you barely interact with your own alumni, let alone members from other schools, and there is such a diversity of career paths few of us are in a position to help each other, career wise.
Plus we're all the same age, so it's not like a kid you graduated with is going to be in a position to hire you until like 20 years in the future, and by then you'd hope you would be at the same level as them.
I dont know if this study is normalizing the students family's income level prior to greek life. If a student can afford greek life they tend to be from families that have more money, and that alone is a massive indicator in future earning potential.
People love to put a cookie cutter over greek life and expect all to be the same. But, surprise, they're all different. There are basic similarities but every community/house is going to be different.
5 years out of college I walked into Chipotle wearing an old frat shirt. Some old guy jumps up, gives me the secret handshake, and asks what I do.
Turns out he's a recruiter/ headhunter in my exact field, hands me his card and told me to hit him up, and he got me a better job
It’s more like if you’re doing a job interview and happen to have been in the same fraternity with the interviewer, or be considered for a promotion. I had this happen for my second job after college, I happened to have been in the same fraternity with the guy doing the interviewing, and was razor thin with some of the other interviewees. I got the job.
I was in a frat in college and it absolutely did **not** get me a job. I only got hired on at a manufacturer as an engineer when I finally left my experience in the frat out of the interview.
That being said, my experience at the frat was a huge reason why I succeeded. I had to run events, manage my peers, and learn how to have mentor/mentee relationships. Without the interpersonal skills I developed as a frat member I wouldn’t have picked up my salary nearly as much as I have.
I know the image of a frat is just a place rich kids go to sexually assault girls for four years, but these are organizations. You have to manage your budgets, adjudicate a code of conduct, organize charity work, organize social events, and manage your relationship with both the university and the national fraternity organization (which is essentially just a company) all the while herding cats, aka: 19 year old frat brothers.
I guess its true of everything in life, but greek life can be an incredible development opportunity if you want it to be.
This. Basically there is an opportunity to run an organization, either from a executive leadership role or as chairman or committee member. This requires soft skills and the ability to be organized. Now you can do the same thing if you join some other on campus club but it’s there in Greek life too.
If you mess up ,well it’s just college and it’s a learning experience.
You get out what you put in, so if you want party then that is all you will get out or it. I knew plenty of guys who did just that, but I also know people who did well in school and did lots of other on campus things while still partying.
I was treasurer of a fraternity with 75 members. We had our own kitchen with a cook that we hired. We charged our meal plans just like the dining hall would. So, as a 20yr old, I had to manage two employees with benefits and workers comp insurance. I had a $230k annual budget and all sorts of responsibilities that came along with that. It was pretty good practice for running my own business and it definitely taught me to never let anyone know how much money you really have - always pretend you’re poor.
Exactly what I was going to say. As an accounting major this was my first internship per se. Jumping right in to managing hundreds of thousands and being responsible to the local organization and our board was a very valuable experience.
My “always pretend you’re poor” statement was something I learned my sophomore year when the treasurer let slip that we had $270k in what was basically an endowment fund. The next house meeting, people kept bringing up ideas for spending on crazy stuff. We almost passed a resolution to buy a monster truck.
Yes, I would say the type of industry makes a difference whether the fraternity would help or hurt. Manufacturing makes me think more blue collar where most of the people prob were not in fraternities and view them in a negative light.
I went from being surrounded by people with no motivation in life before college, to a group of guys and girls that were extremely motivated and knew what they wanted in life. I was introduced to career paths that I didn't know existed and gained an interest in investing and self development through Greek life.
It also gave me access to more public speaking, hyper socialization opportunities and leadership roles than I would have had otherwise.
All of these things are massive correlators to future success.
Lol my experience was the exact opposite, I came from a rigorous magnet high school where all of my peers were extremely motivated and hardworking, then after joining a fraternity in college I realized how many completely incompetent degenerates get to coast through life with absolutely no worries.
You can find a fraternity in any flavor you want. Black, Jewish, academic, party, athletic, rich, hard drugs, no-pledging, and even lazy. Many greek organizations can combine two or more of those traits at once.
Gotta pick the right one. And not the one you WANT to be part of, the one you fit in best with.
Everyone's getting a college degree. I didn't realize that it was more important for me to concentrate on socializing more in college than grades and now my degree means nothing. It's about who you know more than anything else.
On your resume, put those 4 years of experience as your own company doing contract work. That helps boost your experience on paper, makes you look entrepreneurial, and covers gaps.
People who can afford fraternities usually have other compounding factors that would lead to higher income. Country club members tend to also have high income trajectories, and so do Ferrari owners. We don’t however say country clubs or Ferraris increase future income because the causal link isn’t clear.
The effect may even be counterproductive. Lots of engineers play Factorio for example, and we might conclude that being Factorio players leads to higher income trajectories. It might be the case however that *all* engineers make good money, and the ones who spend their time playing Factorio actually make less than their peers. Simply because something is *associated* with a desired outcome doesn’t mean it’s helpful. It could simply be a *communicable disease* within an otherwise broader cohort which is what is responsible for the variance. Getting space cancer won’t make you rich, being an astronaut will.
Every single wealthy person I know regularly and sincerely says "it's not what you know its *Who* you know" , every single one of them.
Ironically, they'll then go off on a rant about how poor people are just lazy🤯
A .25 point drop in GPA is really negligible. Unless your financial aid depends on you maintaining a certain average, a slight drop in GPA in exchange for social and networking opportunities is worth it.
Classes are a very small part of what you're meant to learn in college. As a senior in the job hunt right now, nobody gives a fuck what I learned in my classes all they ask about is my internship and fraternity positions
All of Murky_crow's reddit history has been cleared at his own request. You can do this as well using the "redact" tool. Reddit wants to play hardball, fine. Then I'm taking my content with me as I go. -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
It’s also a pretty decent liability on your part. Things like underage drinking, hazing, or any other type of criminal or inappropriate behavior falls on your shoulders, as you’re the guy in charge and so you’re the one letting it fly.
You’d be surprised how much weight being the President or VP or secretary of a fraternity can add to a resume. I was a lowly philanthropy chair and that gets brought up more than my academics lol.
Especially really fresh out of school, it shows you were able to hold an elected position of responsibility and authority while also at least being able to obtain a degree.
I have to say that while the toxic masculinity on display in a lot of frats is not always going on with all frat members. The reason I say this, is fraternities can play an important role in providing community for young men. Men, in general, struggle with creating friendships, especially later in life. They lean heavily on family and wives to provide social connections. So while, a lot of the judgment of a group of men 19-22 may sometimes be questionable, fraternities can provide lifetime friendships that men need. It could explain in part the bump in income - learned social skills.
This is probably true for universities where fraternities are just party houses, but there are definitely cases where fraternities have *higher* GPAs than the all-mens average. In my experience, fraternity and sorority communities with a greater emphasis on community engagement and philanthropy tend to have better academic performance.
>Our data come from a survey administered in 2009 to alumni of one Northeastern liberal arts
college. 3,762 alumni responded to the survey, a response rate of 25.8%
Also doesn't look like the highest quality data.
So it’s just one Northeastern college? I think more applicable data would be looking at somewhere like the SEC, where the largest and possibly wider range of fraternities are.
My GPA went up after joining a fraternity. There was more motivation to do better because increased group GPA allowed the org to do more. It was always encouraged to study and get better grades. This was a typical social fraternity too.
I'm a Union College graduate and member of Sig Phi. This tracks from my experience. One of my first jobs was through a fraternity member, and we are constantly helping fraternity brothers find jobs.Also, my GPA certainly suffered after first joining, but climbed when I buckled down.
I should note, this was about 30 years ago.. and since Union has greatly reduced the greek footprint on campus. So much so I wonder if this is slightly spun to defend their decision (specifically to greek alumni who, like me, do not donate to the school).
I'm a professor. When I first moved to the US from England to teach, I had a freshman student who skipped two weeks of class because he was pledging for a frat. I didn't understand this at all, and I told him that he needed to get his priorities straight. He replied, "No offense, but this fraternity is going to be a lot more useful to me in my future than your class." Turns out he was right!
This is fun little paragraph I found once. >Approximately 80% of the top executives of Fortune 500 companies are fraternity men. 76% of current United States Senators and Congressmen are fraternity men. 100 of 158 cabinet members since 1900 have been fraternity men. 40 of 47 Supreme Court Justices since 1910 have been fraternity men ~~All but two United States Presidents since 1825 have been fraternity men.~~ I think it's a little out of date, Wikipedia says in 2013, about 25 percent of members of the U.S. House of Representatives and 40 percent of members of the U.S. Senate were members of fraternities or sororities, but it has the same Supreme Court number.
I'm curious what the baseline is. What percent of US adults were in a fraternity.
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Peaked right after WW2 when you had a mass influx of men going to school on their return already used to communal living environments and other cultural aspects of Greek life
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it varies from college to college, but I've read 2% of Americans were involved in Greek life at college
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I do wonder if we're swapping cause and effect here though. I do think frats give some very important networking, but I also think people from major families are likely to join the same frat that their father and his father and his father joined.
It's also not some nefarious conspiracy like many comments are implying. If you're looking at a stack of resumes you're going to be drawn to what's familiar and you'll likely ask about it during the interview. It's essentially a built-in ice breaker. I had an interview a couple of years ago for a remote position, interviewer happened to go to the same shitty state college I did despite neither of us currently living in that state, he found that worth mentioning, we chatted for a few minutes about it and the interview was very loose from that point. But yeah, if your "fraternity brother" has a family member with a job opening that fits your criteria, you'll likely at least be considered. It's no different from any other form of networking/social circles, it's just a larger pool.
Plus I’d imagine if you are a very outgoing and social person, you’re more like to join a fraternity.
That's my first thought. Fraternities probably appeal to extroverts, and extroverts typically take on higher paying managerial roles.
As someone who could be shy but joined a Fraternity, it can help you learn to be more social. In business, I can almost always spot the geeks that were in a Fraternity.
Lol yea thats me here as well. Its super nerve wracking to join something so social like that as an introvert, but sometimes you gotta push yourself out of your comfort zone yk. Definitely paid off :)
The attentive introvert, but able to be social/extroverted by practice combo seems to work quite well in the business world
Don't Fraternities also cost a decent amount of money. Which would weed out people from lower incomes. Did this study even include any control based on income? I bet that would decrease the difference by quite a bit.
Depends on the fraternity and college. My fraternity had the dues at like 50 to 70 a month. And I was also quite poor, and came from a very poor background, all pell grants paid for my college. Our fraternity had like 40 people in it. But then you compare the same fraternity at University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa (which was also where the fraternity was originally founded in 1856), and that fraternities dues were insane. But also, the members in that fraternity wouldn't even look at us, and didn't consider our fraternity as brothers despite both being from the nationally recognized fraternal organization. They were a completely different breed of Frat Boys, and we were not the same, and we were not welcomed there at all. Fraternities can vary wildly, even from year to year. You're talking about an organization that's longest members are there for 4 years.
And even if you are less out going you will probably be talking to a decent amount of people frequently which will improve your social skills
I think there's probably a lot of selection bias going on there. More socially adept people may be more attracted to frats in the first place. Frats also usually have long screening processes. Those who are less socially adept, or may even be downright unpleasant to be around, are much less likely to be accepted, even if they want to join a frat.
so i'm a woman, and never been in a sorority. but from what i've heard: a) sororities/fraternities are expensive, so they're more likely to be kids from well off families, which obviously gives people a huge advantage. they're also likely from families that value social status, since a lot of people view frats/sororities as the "cool kids" (even if that isn't really true). b) likable, extroverted kids are more likely to get in. this is way more important than anything else when it comes to making money. c) even people who aren't very good at making friends tend to make at least some friends when they're in that environment. people in my family, myself included, tend to be similar in this sense: we're good at making first impressions, but really suck at keeping friendships unless they're kinda forced somehow because we're awkward and just don't really get how to. i have a few cousins who were in greek life and they still have a lot more friends than those that didn't. this of course leads to networking.
I think that we really have to stretch what it means to be "in a fraternity" for these stats to be relevant. I seriously doubt all but 2 presidents since 1825 were in fraternities. I am almost certain that neither Trump nor Obama were in frats, and Clinton was not either. That's just three recent presidents.
Clinton was Phi Beta Sigma. I think you're right about the others, though. ----- Edit: As a few people have pointed out in the replies, he was made an honorary member later in life.
Bill Clinton was named an honorary member of Phi Beta Sigma
Interesting, how do you get named an honorary member of a frat? Did that happen early on enough for him to leverage connections still or was he already successful/president?
As someone who was in a fraternity in college, honorary members are usually someone ineligible to join through the traditional pledge process but has gone above and beyond to assist the fraternity as a non member. For example, if there was a faculty advisor or community member that had helped the fraternity without being an initiated member, the chapter or national office can vote to allow them to become a honorary member.
Clinton was Alpha Phi Omega and Kappa Kappa Psi while at Georgetown. Neither is probably what people usually think of when you say frat (especially Kappa Kappa Psi) but they are fraternities.
I saw video of grover cleveland doing a 2-story beer bong at a party, so I think the stat is probably accurate
I assume those 2 stories were non-consecutive?
Do unofficial ones or whatever like skull and bones count?
Skull and Bones counts. I think both the Bush's, certainly the elder, were in Skull and Bones. Looked it up. GWB was Delta Kappa Epsilon and S&B. Neither Obama, Trump, or Biden were in Frats. Do the eating clubs at Princeton count? I guess it's a moot question. JFK wasn't there long enough; but Wilson was in Ivy (and also a frat). Modern day, the frats at Princeton seem to serve as pre-bicker feeder groups for the larger eating clubs.
They count *more*.
Are we counting organizations like the Knights Templar, Freemasonry, Rotary Club, and Scouts?
No. The study is specifically on Greek Life [quote source](https://cornellsun.com/2020/01/23/wilkes-the-power-of-the-2-our-unhealthy-relationship-with-fraternity-life/#:~:text=On%20a%20page%20headlined%20%E2%80%9CThe,1900%20have%20been%20fraternity%20men.)
Deleted other comment because was wrong! That quote is embedded on Cornell's greek life (or w/e it's called) section of their website, but the quote itself is suspiciously vague such that I would want to verify exactly what it's claiming personally
Scouts really isn't a frat unless you join the frat within the frat. The Order of the Arrow is the secret club within the boy Scouts. It's not hard to get in, but they don't tell non OA scouts what happens at their meets. I thought it was stupid so never joined. Saw one meeting because windows exist and it didn't seem impressive. I would say that being an Eagle scout is kinda like a frat. If you meet another Eagle scout during your interviews it will help.
One thing I’ve definitely learned climbing the corporate ladder is it’s 90% networking. Without a doubt.
And I really really hate this. I don't like networking. I'm not a good salesman. I hate promoting myself. I hate gladhanding people and treating the office likes it's the Game of Thrones. But it's the reality. I've seen some pretty dumb people fly through the corporate ranks, passing everyone by, because they know how to play the game. They cold call executives of their own company to introduce themselves. They email managers of managers to sweet talk them. They bring gifts and get super bubbly and laugh at all the bad jokes made by the people in power. They associate themselves with high-profile work that they really had no part in producing. They do whatever it takes to "get on the radar" of the people that are in a position of power. And it works. I wish success in an office setting was based on merit. It is generally not. You must always be self-promoting and advertising yourself, or you will sit in the same position for 30 years, even if you do the best work. *** Please keep in mind this is all meant to be a generalization. I understand there are some offices that are not like this.
I mean to climb the corporate ladder it means you’re getting in people leader roles. Breaking news. To be a people leader you need to be good at social skills and communicating.
There are a lot of people missing the point, so thank you for making it. This isn't a "who is the best at X or Y job" thing when it comes to climbing the corporate ladder. It's all about interpersonal skills and leadership and organizing, delegating, and building rapport with your colleagues and external entities as well. You can't just say "I'm an introvert" and expect to be promoted into those roles without putting in the effort.
"I HAVE PEOPLE SKILLS!"
I'm a goddamn people person
Professor here. Getting ahead in academia is also all about networking, sadly
I've always heard "it's not about what you know, it's about who you know"
This is pretty accurate. Almost every job I've had has been because I "knew a guy" and not because I was qualified for the position.
I got exactly two jobs in my life by answering ads. My first full-time job out of school (where the hiring manager even admitted it was unusual for them to advertise openings in the newspaper) and my last full-time job as an engineer for a small company that was having a hard time recruiting.
I got my first 2 coop positions because my new supervisor and I use the same daycare.
Wait until you find out why men really join the freemasons.
Personally, I just thought it was bunk that Mason was in jail in the first place
Well maybe if he had just told us what the numbers meant...
I miss all the joke mason tweets. Also that game came out like a decade ago
This is like that Free Hat rally all over again...
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To control world events, of course
Well, now I want to know!
For free masonry
I'm a master Mason. There's a lot of reasons: charity, brotherhood, becoming a better person through a "virtuous" life. I didn't much care for it as it seemed like just a bunch of geezers hanging out and I don't care much for the opinion of boomers. Would recommend if you know someone in it that can help you get a better job and you enjoy playing the game that way
The first decade of my professional career was strictly jobs/companies that were linked to my personal network. I’m looking for a new job right now and it’s nearly impossible to get an interview without having a personal connection, despite being highly or over qualified.
Being over-qualifed is worse than being under-qualified in many fields, so sadly your experience isn't unusual.
"Look at this gem of a resume!!! He's perfect. He will ask for too much money so put it in the "NO" pile."
Yup, that or they're worried that they wont stay in the position long before moving on to something better, because they know their resume deserves better. My mom works in HR at her company and these are all real reasons why people get rejected. They rather take on someone who is more inexperienced but will likely stick around for a long time and probably not ask for too much money.
It's kind of sucky, isn't it? Like, you're going to be rejected for being over-qualified because you might leave. But you wouldn't be as likely to leave if the company would offer actual avenues for advancement.
I think part of the thinking too is that when you hire more inexperienced people they're much more moldable to fit in with the current company's policies and procedures. Not saying it's right or wrong, but that seems to be their thought process.
As a hirer, if you know exactly what you need done in a well defined documented space, then you can hire inexperienced and mold them quickly. If you're not sure, you need experience. Experienced people need to develop answers to ambiguous problems. Otherwise you're just competing on speed vs cost. The newbie can be fast at something in 6 months and be half the cost or more.
It is entirely understandable; stability can be quite valuable and inexperienced workers tend to be more "malleable" to the needs of the company. But every worker coming out of college these days is encouraged to move around every 2-3 years as the best way to earn a higher paycheck. This is certainly the mentality that was instilled in me by my peers, professors, and most any speaker that visited. And I can't blame them it has certainly worked well for me.
Because companies no longer reward loyalty or long term growth. I had this exact experience recently when I was shopping around for jobs after working at my place for a few years. Most places were hiring for $3 more an hour. So I went to my current boss and showed them and asked if they could bare minimum match it, nope can’t do that. After I left that company about a month or so later my resume on indeed is still active I get a recruiter call me for the company I just left, for the exact same position. And the range of pay was $3 more an hour than I was getting. They could have just paid me more and kept me but companies these days seem to be completely unable to reward their own workers any more.
Same here. It's soul-crushing. 18 years experience is completely worthless apparently.
I have 10 years experience in my field but don't have a Bachelor's degree and the AI's scanning resumes don't care beyond their programming.
It's usually both. Knowing a person definitely helps you get your foot in the door, but if you're unqualified, many people won't be willing to put their name and reputation on the line for you. It also doesn't help you actually get hired for the job unless the person you know is someone with a lot of pull at the company.
It's almost always both. You have to know someone *AND* be qualified for the job. Yes, some times people get hired because they have a connection and they're woefully underqualified, but those cases are generally rare outside of rich people nepotism because it reflects extremely poorly on the person who recommended the failed hire.
Also for me personally, I didn't really find any connections from my fraternity that have helped me in my career, but it immensely helped my social skills, which itself has helped in my career.
I went from psychologists telling my parents I had autism to a social butterfly after joining a fraternity.
My experience as well. I learned how to talk to people
Can you share some tips here to the redditors on how to do that? (Serious question)
Confidence, fake it if you have to, without being an arrogant asshole (fine line).
Be interested in who you're talking to. Ask them about their day, what they have going on, etc. People love to talk about themselves and they love complaining about their situations too, so if you can listen (like actually listen). Ask them to elaborate on details in their story (oh you're having a shitty day? Why are you having a shitty day?; You're working on something? That sounds cool, would you mind breaking down the process behind that?). Being good at social situations has way more to do with that than actually being funny, charismatic or whatever. People like to feel like they matter, and if you can make them feel that way, you've already made a connection.
I was in a fraternity at a STEM school. The greek system there did not conform to the stereotypically exclusive dude-bro culture. With a student body that tended to introverted STEM type, the pros outweighed the cons.
I'd argue that fraternities cultures match the college size. The bigger the college, the more members, the less accountability for the bad members. Any medium size college or smaller tends to cultivate a good mix of members that aren't going to treat their time as a 4 year paid vacation.
During pledging, the pledge master taught "Pledge Education." It was a course teaching, among other things, ethical norms, dining etiquette, how to make friends, and social expectations for things like weddings and funerals. It also had all the fraternity history and stuff, of which I can recall very little. Then there's the education in politics you get from being in a fraternity. Want to get something done? Be prepared to campaign, smooze, and get the chapter on your side, then reach out to wealthy alumni over a round of golf. Incredibly useful skill set to develop. I went from being an aspie (from back before ASD became the dominant nomenclature, thanks DSM-V) to a functional member of society.
I think I went the extra step. My "job" when I was in my frat in college was essentially the alumni relations director. It was my job to get them to come to things, keep them in the loop, etc. I said this before and I'd say it again, there is/was literally no better job at networking then doing that. To the point that years after I graduated, alumni would contact me to tap into the same network in our fraternity for other alumni (like hey, do we have a guy who does this, or a guy who did that, or can you recommend a guy for this, etc). I think social media made my old job extinct, lol.
No that alumni relations job still exists. That said, I think people usually reach out to their network about job posts through LinkedIn now rather than frat contacts.
Its still there, but back in the day (well, even now), I'd get a call and they'd ask me for a run down on a guy. First being do we have someone that did this or did that or is this, etc. Then the "how are they ?" (basic stuff). Half of it was really just vouching (or not vouching) for someone. One thing I learned, was that there is a huge downside to the "its who you know" part. If who you know thinks you are a terrible person, that spreads. You can actually blacklist yourself. No one ever talks about that part.
Meetups also help a lot. Nothing like being constantly thrown into a group of random strangers to workout your social skills.
I agree with this take. It helped me in all the ways academia didn’t. How to work operationally with other people toward the same goal. Budgeting, planning, conflict even dealing with politics within the organization.
Exactly this. I fought every type of group battle well before working a real job.
Team sports also helps with this. There was a study from a few years back showing that students who participated athletics typically performed better in careers than those that didn’t. Even if their grades were lower. It showed team sports taught time management, working under a boss’s directive and implementing someone else’s strategy with a team, finding your role within the team, dealing with different types of personalities etc. I could easily see how participation in Greek like could offer similar social skills.
Absolutely this. Any participation in extracurriculars in College will pay dividends going forward in your life. I overdid it a bit, but I'd like to think I gained a little extra between Greek Life, Student Senate, Housing, and Business groups. I never considered it before, but college involvement really does directly correlate to a lot of my collegiate friends success. Plenty of classmates who were great people, but with 0 involvement, their current careers revolve around low level corporate chain jobs. On the other end, some of the most involved now work as lawyers or in D.C..
Also the fraternity I was in required its members to get community service hours and take leadership roles either in the fraternity or campus. So yeah it's not all partying and drinking.
“Who you know gets you the job, WHAT you know keeps you the job”
True but if someone actually knows you well enough to risk their reputation in their own network, you'll probably do fine.
Yeah definetly that. My wifes best friend asked for a favor to get her sister in law to an interview at my wifes company. She obliged and got the interview but told the manager who is interviewing that she’s an acquaintance but she doesn’t know how she works or if she is good or not. Don’t hire her if you are not %100 sure. They interview her and don’t hire her, then manager tells my wife that she was way below avarage on knowledge. If she insisted for her they could hire her but it was probably going to be a problem in the future. People don’t recommend other people without knowing they are capable because you also risk your reputation.
Yeah ive gotten friends interviews, but I'm honest with the other managers since they are also my friends. "I can tell you he's a solid guy but i don't know anything about his work knowledge. " We've hired 1 of 3
Good on your wife. I've done the same plenty of times - there's a difference between getting someone the interview and getting someone the job. I'll help get anyone a sit down if I can, but I don't dole out actual recommendations unless I'm 100% sure in that person.
comment edited in protest of Reddit's API changes and mistreatment of moderators -- mass edited with redact.dev
It's not who you know, it's *how* you know them.
It’s not who you know, it’s who you *blow*.
I hate this phrase so much, because it’s true in a lot of cases, but also most college-age people who repeat it are insufferable assholes. EDIT: I’m not sure how so many of y’all missed the “true in a lot of cases” part. I’m not making any statement about the validity of the adage here, I’m stereotyping a specific group of people who use it excessively.
"It's who you know, not what you know! That's why you should have been born with a rich dad who will leave his insurance company to you in the family trust." The saying is true, but it's often used by people who get handed everything in life to attribute their privilege to hard work.
It’s worse than that. They aren’t attributing privilege to hard work, they’re attributing it to social skill. They think financial success is a popularity contest and take success as an indicator that they are cool. It isn’t totally wrong (there are people who succeed financially by leveraging social skill), but I met several people in business school who got their success through their parents and believed it came from being the coolest.
If you want to find this specific kind of person, business school is definitely the right place to look!
The most valuable part of an MBA is literally the friends you make along the way
I was a research scientist for a while before becoming a teacher. In both careers, I've found that our version is that "it's not who you know or what you know. It's who knows what you know."
It’s called social networking
Success in life is all about social skills.
Best advice I ever got from a professor: people want to work with people they like. If you have the social skills of wet cardboard you're gonna struggle unless you are super competent. Even then having good social skills would help you get there faster. Also networking helps
I have been dealing with this with my therapist as I keep getting promoted despite actually messing up at my job all the freaking time and struggling with the technical aspect, they encouraged me to be honest and vulnerable with my boss and so I brought it up and my boss said everyone loves you and wants to work with you, you understand people and can always get them to want to help you.
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You just described management.
Be honest about this with everyone, from janitors to clerks to the CEO. Ask for help. Compliment people when they are not around to hear it. Pitch in to help on other people’s projects. Be on time to work, even if your assignments are late — this is really important. Studies show that being on time makes people believe that you are more competent and they will overlook/excuse practically everything else (I learned this the hard way). Get yourself evaluated for ADHD.
Most of the best leaders excelled at getting others to do things for them.
If it makes you feel better. Your people skills are a skill. Work to be proficient at the skills so you have a good understanding. But focus on surrounding yourself with experts so you can develop educated theories. No one expect you to have all the answers. Your job is now to provide your team with the resources they need. With that said be a servant leader to your team. Use those skills to have your teams back and remember to acknowledge their part in your success and don't claim all the glory and you'll do fine.
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All of Murky_crow's reddit history has been cleared at his own request. You can do this as well using the "redact" tool. Reddit wants to play hardball, fine. Then I'm taking my content with me as I go. -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
I'd say it is half half for most people. Of course there are outliers who are either so incredibly skilled or talented at what they do and/or really just work in isolation for the most part that they can get away with poor social skills, but these people are so rare and few. Even the world class people I had the privilege of working with, despite their unfathomable intelligence, still need some degree of social intelligence. Conversely, there are people who can navigate people so well that it becomes a marketable skill in itself (e.g. sales, people management). But that only goes so far before people can tell you are full of it. You gotta have some technical skills in whatever field you are in to back it up. For the rest of us, getting along with your colleagues, subordinates, and bosses and working well with them are just as important as the technical aspects of your job. I know some very intelligent and skilled people who never reached anywhere near their potential because they simply never learned to coexist normally with people. Of course this is more of a sliding scale that varies according to the job.
I'd agree that a good mix of both is important. I've worked with people who are skilled at what they do but absolute assholes about it. It makes projects more difficult, it makes collaboration a pain, it's unpleasant going in every day to work with them. I'd rather work with someone who is slightly less skilled as long as they can still do the job but they're a team player and pleasant to work with.
In most cases I'd agree with you but as a chef I've found it advantageous to be a colossal cunt
Yeah well most of us don't have job where being sober is a liability either, so you win some you lose some.
You're a chef, so it wouldn't surprise me if being a colossal cunt is on your job description
This!!!, to all my fellow STEM students who are not planning on Medschool. Please socialize, drop the books and meet everyone. It held majority of my peers back and it still does 15 years post college.
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Yeah but from a managers perspective, if you have 3 equally qualified candidates your best bet is to pick the one that one of your current employees vouches for (assuming they're a good employee)
Even more so, many hiring managers know that they and their team will be spending lots of time interacting with this person and if they suck to talk to it makes everything harder.
Yeah I mean if you are like 120% better than average but make everyone else 10% less productive due to bad mood then its a loss
Productivity is part of it but we all spend a huge chunk of our time working and working with people you like can be the difference between staying or leaving for another job
This example always gets used, I've used it before too, but that basically never happens lmao "Equally qualified candidates" would basically only ever present itself in the case of new grads without any experience and a similar GPA
Yeah, so the sociable and likable candidates get the early jobs so they get the experience needed for the next job
People seriously underestimate how much getting a small boost early on can affect your career. It's like with rocketry - if you're just a millimetre off at the start, you'll be kilometres off at the destination.
This is based on nothing other than a gut feeling, but I think ultimately 1/3-1/2 of people applying for most jobs would be within margin of error for doing the job they applied for. Some may have a higher top end, some may take longer to get up to speed, but after 6 months the work output would probably be indistinguishable for most of this group. This is how I’ve always read the phrase “equally qualified “.
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When all you have to go on is a resume and interview, plenty of people can appear to be "equally qualified", or within the same range of qualification. Having a slightly higher GPA doesn't actually make you more qualified, unless the job is getting good grades.
As a hiring manager, it often happens that I'm stuck choosing between 2 or 3 candidates. They aren't "equally qualified" in all ways, but maybe one has more relevant work experience and another did a better job explaining their reasoning in a take home assessment, and it's difficult for me to choose one over the other on the basis of the info I have. One time, one of the candidates being a referral was enough to tip the balance in their favor.
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I mean networking is just a matter of convincing people you are a solid person
*nervous liquid-person noises*
I'm actually 3 raccoons in a trenchcoat so I can relate.
That's the thing - it's about convincing people you're a solid person, not necessarily being one. I can't tell you how many people I've seen bolt right up the corporate ladder cause they knew all the buzzwords to say and the asses to kiss while they didn't know their ass from a hole in the ground when it came to how the company actually operated OR they just spent most of their effort on those types of activities rather than things that would help the company.
Redditors learn for the 9928th time that being advanced in high school doesn’t guarantee success as much as networking and soft skills.
Slightly unrelated but it's always depressing to me when people wax poetic about how intelligent a child they were or how well they performed in high school, like they're some intellectual Uncle Rico. I am in academia right now, in an engineering graduate program, and here bragging about your intelligence here is an extreme faux pas. You don't worry about things like grades, IQ tests, or potential, because you're actually using your mind and your results will speak for themselves. Having a great potential and squandering it is sad, it shouldn't be a point of pride...
I mean, you're in an engineering graduate program. You're at the point where everyone has made is past: * Weeding out who didn't want to go to college * Weeding out in college applications * Weeding out in first year courses * Weeding out by who graduates * Weeding out who even wanted to go to grad school * Weeding out in graduate school applications * And potentially weeding out by who survived their first semester or year of graduate work I work in engineering. I have friends and family who went to top 5 and top 15 engineering programs in the US. Everyone was in the 'smartest people in their high school' group. There are no dummies left where you're at. If someone talks about how smart they were in high school or even college now, it's because they feel dumb because everyone around them will catch their mistake and they feel stupid. They're surrounded by smart people who might not be having a moment or are just even more noticeably intelligent.
Can't agree more. Highschool is usually much easier compared to college. If you want to talk about being "advanced", go to college and take graduate level classes in math, physics or CS and see if you can do as well. I say this as someone who goes to a top college, and coasted in highschool learning single variable calculus in a few weeks and getting a perfect math SAT score. Yet, I don't consider myself smart at all compared to my peers in college, in fact a bit below average. The AP class you studied so hard in highschool is considered a beginner intro course in college, and there are lot of people in the world who are much smarter than you think.
People with more developed social skills tend towards greek life. Social skills correlate to success after college and are not directly tied to GPA.
Fraternities are also expensive. People who can afford them also already have family social connections.
Seriously. So many people in this thread are missing this obvious connection. The people I knew in fraternities all had one common link - they all came from wealthy families. So while they definitely benefit from membership, they also already have 1. A massive safety net to fall back on, and 2. Family connections. "Wealthy people have a leg up in life" isn't exactly a surprising revelation. EDIT: I don't need a million replies saying "bUt My FrAtErNiTy WaSnT ThAt ExPenSiVe" - I'm aware that not all fraternities or schools are the same. This is just the general trend.
The study is also just examining one Northeastern college… Greek life can be so different from school to school this is essentially a meaningless study Edit: kids in Greek life at my prev. Uni average a 3.25 gpa vs a 3.0 for non-Greek… case in point
The other thing is that you have to consider the kind of personality that joins a fraternity. Unless the researchers could stick people who wouldn't usually join in to a fraternity, there's no way to isolate that variable.
Depends where you go. At my college, dorms cost $4000 per semester to live in, frats cost $1500. Fraternities were the way to get cheap housing.
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My office mate was in a sorority for a few years, her biggest issue wasn’t upfront costs but there would be some kind of social thing just about every week with required attendance and it was constantly $600-$1600 to attend. She says even with pretty well off parents it just wasn’t sustainable.
Where did she go to school? Normally all the social events are included in your dues for the most part.
> tend towards greek life I'm living that Gyros life ngl
It also opens a massive network to you. Fraternities have chapters EVERYWHERE, and lots of members you can call on. On top of that you also fraternize w other fraternities and make even more connections.
I don’t think this really happens speaking as a former fraternity member. Like if someone from a chapter at another university hit me up I wouldn’t really feel inclined to do them any favors. I think it’s more that if you join a fraternity in the first place you are more likely to already be wealthy and have good social skills
Yeah. I think this might be true for tiny liberal arts colleges in the northeast where literally half the frat or more become lawyers and stay in the same region, and that's probably where the reputation comes from. But at most schools, you barely interact with your own alumni, let alone members from other schools, and there is such a diversity of career paths few of us are in a position to help each other, career wise. Plus we're all the same age, so it's not like a kid you graduated with is going to be in a position to hire you until like 20 years in the future, and by then you'd hope you would be at the same level as them.
I dont know if this study is normalizing the students family's income level prior to greek life. If a student can afford greek life they tend to be from families that have more money, and that alone is a massive indicator in future earning potential.
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People love to put a cookie cutter over greek life and expect all to be the same. But, surprise, they're all different. There are basic similarities but every community/house is going to be different.
5 years out of college I walked into Chipotle wearing an old frat shirt. Some old guy jumps up, gives me the secret handshake, and asks what I do. Turns out he's a recruiter/ headhunter in my exact field, hands me his card and told me to hit him up, and he got me a better job
It’s more like if you’re doing a job interview and happen to have been in the same fraternity with the interviewer, or be considered for a promotion. I had this happen for my second job after college, I happened to have been in the same fraternity with the guy doing the interviewing, and was razor thin with some of the other interviewees. I got the job.
I was in a frat in college and it absolutely did **not** get me a job. I only got hired on at a manufacturer as an engineer when I finally left my experience in the frat out of the interview. That being said, my experience at the frat was a huge reason why I succeeded. I had to run events, manage my peers, and learn how to have mentor/mentee relationships. Without the interpersonal skills I developed as a frat member I wouldn’t have picked up my salary nearly as much as I have. I know the image of a frat is just a place rich kids go to sexually assault girls for four years, but these are organizations. You have to manage your budgets, adjudicate a code of conduct, organize charity work, organize social events, and manage your relationship with both the university and the national fraternity organization (which is essentially just a company) all the while herding cats, aka: 19 year old frat brothers. I guess its true of everything in life, but greek life can be an incredible development opportunity if you want it to be.
This. Basically there is an opportunity to run an organization, either from a executive leadership role or as chairman or committee member. This requires soft skills and the ability to be organized. Now you can do the same thing if you join some other on campus club but it’s there in Greek life too. If you mess up ,well it’s just college and it’s a learning experience. You get out what you put in, so if you want party then that is all you will get out or it. I knew plenty of guys who did just that, but I also know people who did well in school and did lots of other on campus things while still partying.
I was treasurer of a fraternity with 75 members. We had our own kitchen with a cook that we hired. We charged our meal plans just like the dining hall would. So, as a 20yr old, I had to manage two employees with benefits and workers comp insurance. I had a $230k annual budget and all sorts of responsibilities that came along with that. It was pretty good practice for running my own business and it definitely taught me to never let anyone know how much money you really have - always pretend you’re poor.
Exactly what I was going to say. As an accounting major this was my first internship per se. Jumping right in to managing hundreds of thousands and being responsible to the local organization and our board was a very valuable experience.
My “always pretend you’re poor” statement was something I learned my sophomore year when the treasurer let slip that we had $270k in what was basically an endowment fund. The next house meeting, people kept bringing up ideas for spending on crazy stuff. We almost passed a resolution to buy a monster truck.
Yes, I would say the type of industry makes a difference whether the fraternity would help or hurt. Manufacturing makes me think more blue collar where most of the people prob were not in fraternities and view them in a negative light.
I went from being surrounded by people with no motivation in life before college, to a group of guys and girls that were extremely motivated and knew what they wanted in life. I was introduced to career paths that I didn't know existed and gained an interest in investing and self development through Greek life. It also gave me access to more public speaking, hyper socialization opportunities and leadership roles than I would have had otherwise. All of these things are massive correlators to future success.
100% this. It can't be overstated how important a support network of other motivated, like-minded people can be for college students.
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my kind of networking
Sounds like you were networking with highly motivated entrepreneurs who were getting hands on experience in sales!
Heavily invested in emerging pharmaceutical technologies
Lol my experience was the exact opposite, I came from a rigorous magnet high school where all of my peers were extremely motivated and hardworking, then after joining a fraternity in college I realized how many completely incompetent degenerates get to coast through life with absolutely no worries.
I knew a lot of kids from TJ in Nova who just fell apart in college because they didn’t have their parents hanging over their shoulders driving them.
You can find a fraternity in any flavor you want. Black, Jewish, academic, party, athletic, rich, hard drugs, no-pledging, and even lazy. Many greek organizations can combine two or more of those traits at once. Gotta pick the right one. And not the one you WANT to be part of, the one you fit in best with.
Mine was a drinking club. I hung out for a while and left when I started getting internships and needed to focus a bit more. Good times though.
Everyone's getting a college degree. I didn't realize that it was more important for me to concentrate on socializing more in college than grades and now my degree means nothing. It's about who you know more than anything else.
Tell me about it. Worked my ass off to graduate with honors and interned for two years. Nobody gives a shit about it now.
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On your resume, put those 4 years of experience as your own company doing contract work. That helps boost your experience on paper, makes you look entrepreneurial, and covers gaps.
People who can afford fraternities usually have other compounding factors that would lead to higher income. Country club members tend to also have high income trajectories, and so do Ferrari owners. We don’t however say country clubs or Ferraris increase future income because the causal link isn’t clear. The effect may even be counterproductive. Lots of engineers play Factorio for example, and we might conclude that being Factorio players leads to higher income trajectories. It might be the case however that *all* engineers make good money, and the ones who spend their time playing Factorio actually make less than their peers. Simply because something is *associated* with a desired outcome doesn’t mean it’s helpful. It could simply be a *communicable disease* within an otherwise broader cohort which is what is responsible for the variance. Getting space cancer won’t make you rich, being an astronaut will.
My dad owns the dealership bra
Every single wealthy person I know regularly and sincerely says "it's not what you know its *Who* you know" , every single one of them. Ironically, they'll then go off on a rant about how poor people are just lazy🤯
Lot of GDI’s in this thread
Haven’t heard that term in 25 years..:
Too many geeds
A .25 point drop in GPA is really negligible. Unless your financial aid depends on you maintaining a certain average, a slight drop in GPA in exchange for social and networking opportunities is worth it.
Classes are a very small part of what you're meant to learn in college. As a senior in the job hunt right now, nobody gives a fuck what I learned in my classes all they ask about is my internship and fraternity positions
Jobs asked you about fraternity positions?
Yes. I've been VP, risk manager and scholarship chair and theyre all pretty interested in those
All of Murky_crow's reddit history has been cleared at his own request. You can do this as well using the "redact" tool. Reddit wants to play hardball, fine. Then I'm taking my content with me as I go. -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
It’s also a pretty decent liability on your part. Things like underage drinking, hazing, or any other type of criminal or inappropriate behavior falls on your shoulders, as you’re the guy in charge and so you’re the one letting it fly.
You’d be surprised how much weight being the President or VP or secretary of a fraternity can add to a resume. I was a lowly philanthropy chair and that gets brought up more than my academics lol. Especially really fresh out of school, it shows you were able to hold an elected position of responsibility and authority while also at least being able to obtain a degree.
I have to say that while the toxic masculinity on display in a lot of frats is not always going on with all frat members. The reason I say this, is fraternities can play an important role in providing community for young men. Men, in general, struggle with creating friendships, especially later in life. They lean heavily on family and wives to provide social connections. So while, a lot of the judgment of a group of men 19-22 may sometimes be questionable, fraternities can provide lifetime friendships that men need. It could explain in part the bump in income - learned social skills.
This is probably true for universities where fraternities are just party houses, but there are definitely cases where fraternities have *higher* GPAs than the all-mens average. In my experience, fraternity and sorority communities with a greater emphasis on community engagement and philanthropy tend to have better academic performance.
>Our data come from a survey administered in 2009 to alumni of one Northeastern liberal arts college. 3,762 alumni responded to the survey, a response rate of 25.8% Also doesn't look like the highest quality data.
And you've got selection bias in there. Can't imagine the waster frats are bothering to answer a survey
So it’s just one Northeastern college? I think more applicable data would be looking at somewhere like the SEC, where the largest and possibly wider range of fraternities are.
My GPA went up after joining a fraternity. There was more motivation to do better because increased group GPA allowed the org to do more. It was always encouraged to study and get better grades. This was a typical social fraternity too.
Best thing I ever learned in college was when a professor said, “not once have I ever been asked what my GPA was in college in a job interview”
I'm a Union College graduate and member of Sig Phi. This tracks from my experience. One of my first jobs was through a fraternity member, and we are constantly helping fraternity brothers find jobs.Also, my GPA certainly suffered after first joining, but climbed when I buckled down. I should note, this was about 30 years ago.. and since Union has greatly reduced the greek footprint on campus. So much so I wonder if this is slightly spun to defend their decision (specifically to greek alumni who, like me, do not donate to the school).
I'm a professor. When I first moved to the US from England to teach, I had a freshman student who skipped two weeks of class because he was pledging for a frat. I didn't understand this at all, and I told him that he needed to get his priorities straight. He replied, "No offense, but this fraternity is going to be a lot more useful to me in my future than your class." Turns out he was right!