The best “fraternity” I ever joined was ROTC. My GPA went up half a point, I got in shape, learned a lot about leadership, and made some life-long friends.
Economic and Academic Consequences of Fraternity Membership
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Re: Economic and Academic Consequences of Fraternity Membership
#32Unless you're already about to fail, few, if any, employers will care about your GPA, and joining a large network of college graduates who share camaraderie can't hurt when it comes to finding well paying positions and moving up in organizations
BoorishBears is correct if and only if you are a mediocre talent and you seek a mediocre career.
If you have great talent and seek a great career, then a high GPA will make it substantially easier to get (and to pass) interviews at top-tier employers, and to get into the most competitive areas within those firms. This will, in-turn, have positive knock-on effects for your future career.
It is possible to succeed greatly with any GPA. It is much simpler with a good GPA.
Re: Economic and Academic Consequences of Fraternity Membership
#33Wish I had joined a frat in Uni..
What no one told me in Uni is that:
+ You're either tech or not tech, and not tech is not sexy in the valley
+ You need experience, no one cares about all the extra coursework you do, experience is king
+ Don't wear a suit to an interview in the valley, ever.
+ Your connections are invaluable, form lasting relationships, it's one of those weird things where not studying pays off, a lower GPA is actually good in this instance, and the bonding time with the bros is more valuable down the line.
Re: Economic and Academic Consequences of Fraternity Membership
#34Dear Silicon Valley, Please start something (company or otherwise) that will make it easy for adults (young and old) to become part of a large, real world social network. One which will help them form good career connections, as well as platonic and romantic relationships. Fraternities create their own unique culture (traditions, handshakes, songs, idioms, etc) to tie people together, so keep that in mind. Please lea…
Try LinkedIn and Tinder?
Re: Economic and Academic Consequences of Fraternity Membership
#35Dear Silicon Valley, Please start something (company or otherwise) that will make it easy for adults (young and old) to become part of a large, real world social network. One which will help them form good career connections, as well as platonic and romantic relationships. Fraternities create their own unique culture (traditions, handshakes, songs, idioms, etc) to tie people together, so keep that in mind. Please lea…
Doesn't that already exist? It's not a technology problem. There's everything from Meetup.com to Facebook groups/events to private Slack channels to Tinder for dates to Reddit to so many other things.
Silicon Valley already does have its version of frats: companies. Alumni networks are the equivalent of a frat; working at Google or Facebook or another big company all have their own culture and opens up a lot of doors when you're job hunting.
At the end of the day, though, it's not a problem tech can solve. It's a people problem.
Re: Economic and Academic Consequences of Fraternity Membership
#36Unless you're already about to fail, few, if any, employers will care about your GPA, and joining a large network of college graduates who share camaraderie can't hurt when it comes to finding well paying positions and moving up in organizations
> few, if any, employers will care about your GPA "Elite" careers care a lot about GPA.
I can guarantee no one really cares about your GPA, especially after your first job. If it's your only proof of competency/intelligence that's been validated by a third-party, they'll care, but if you have other outside evidence and interview well, no one will ever even think to ask, even in elite settings.
I, for one, have never put my GPA on my resume.
Re: Economic and Academic Consequences of Fraternity Membership
#37Not surprised. I was in a fraternity, and no we didn't haze at all. Between all the events (of which less than a third are parties) and dedication it takes to keep the thing from barreling into the ground you learn a lot of real life skills.
First, there's selection bias. We would only take guys that were really sociable, somewhat hard working, competitive, and with decent grades. Most fraternities were the same. "Frat bros" being meathead rich retards is a myth. We would pick the smartest, most promising, and sociable guys in the school. Money wasn't a factor. Neither was skin color, my house was probably 40% minorities. But we had a fraternity GPA a solid .6 above school mens average and a dropout rate of less than half. Fraternities ARE elitist and I was proud of that. So are all the tech companies.... We only took the best. Yeah we drank more than most students and had crazy parties but we were also smart, hardworking, and had a lot of friends.
Second, the power structure closely resembles the business world, complete with budgets of over a half million even in a modest sized house. Bigger houses have budgets of millions a year. These budgets were handled by the "exec board" which was just democratically elected student members.
A fraternity is basically a non-profit company run by students. Harder to do than it sounds, especially with all the hate towards Greek coming from the school itself. At many schools the Greek system is actively shunned by the administration.
Then there's the connections. Being in a fraternity/sorority means you automatically know over 50 people pretty well, sometimes hundreds. I was vice president for several years and I knew hundreds. Maybe 20 really well. I knew people on the school board. I met the president of the University enough times that he knew me by name. The president of the student senate was a great friend that lived across the hall.
I got my first job from an old friend from the house and another was kind enough to help me move across the country to a tech hotspot. We're all still friends to this day and we joke about how wedding are largely a fraternity reunion. Everything in my life today exists largely because I joined a fraternity 8 years ago.
Re: Economic and Academic Consequences of Fraternity Membership
#38Kevin Drum notes it's a weak result but if true, wonders if the authors draw the right conclusions:
suppose it’s true. Here’s what the authors say:
Our results indicate that college administrators face an important trade-off when they consider policies designed to limit fraternity life on campus: while such policies may significantly raise academic performance, these gains may come at a significant cost in terms of expected future income for their graduates.
I’d argue exactly the opposite: ... Allow me to reframe the authors’ conclusion:
Our results provide empirical evidence that fraternities are just another way for social elites to keep themselves at the top regardless of actual performance. Those rejected by fraternities, even though they have higher GPAs, earn 36 percent less than those accepted by fraternities. This is further evidence, if any were needed, that college administrators face few trade-offs when they consider policies designed to limit fraternity life on campus.
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/09/new-report-fra...
Re: Economic and Academic Consequences of Fraternity Membership
#39Dear Silicon Valley, Please start something (company or otherwise) that will make it easy for adults (young and old) to become part of a large, real world social network. One which will help them form good career connections, as well as platonic and romantic relationships. Fraternities create their own unique culture (traditions, handshakes, songs, idioms, etc) to tie people together, so keep that in mind. Please lea…
Making it easy defeats the entire point of something like a fraternity: excluding the less valuable and less committed people from the social space so that the high-value and committed people that remain can efficiently use their time.
Now, of course, the fraternities can't say that that's why they're exclusive, but yeah, they're exclusive for a reason.
Re: Economic and Academic Consequences of Fraternity Membership
#40Unless you're already about to fail, few, if any, employers will care about your GPA, and joining a large network of college graduates who share camaraderie can't hurt when it comes to finding well paying positions and moving up in organizations
Hyper-socialization can teach a lot of "soft skills" which come in useful in the business world. Whether it's a fraternity, a sorority, military boot camp, or similar experience, this influence may account for some of the data.