@Yankeefan20: Your post quoted below caused me to smile.
“Did you apply to Bryn Mawr ? There won’t be any fraternities there.”
Any chance that you work in sales ?
I commend you for your post. It’s important that prospective students go to their new college homes with their eyes open.
Nice job!
Are you male or female? It matters, so you should be clear about that.
Your opinion is very valid. I don’t think your experience at Lehigh is representative of all students, and not even most students who attend Lehigh. However, your experience is valid because it allows students who are similar to you to get an insight into how someone like themselves might feel if they choose to attend Lehigh or a similar institution.
There is a lot of talk on CC about “fit”. How important it is to find a school that “fits” with the student. While I think “fit” is sometimes overused in CC discussions, your experience shows “fit” can be very important sometimes.
You did not feel you fit at Lehigh. That’s definitely not a fault of yours. And it may not necessarily be a fault of Lehigh. It was simply a bad fit. Kudos for being wise enough to realize the poor fit and brave enough to make the difficult decision to transfer.
Good luck at your next university!
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With all due respect, what ISummer described is hardly an issue of fit IMO. Nor is it a problem restricted only to Lehigh. Young women need to go into the college experience with their eyes open and prepared with knowledge of resources and actions they can take as well as with a support system.
I agree this is not an issue restricted only to Lehigh. Further, I don’t think this situation is an indictment against Lehigh. It just did not work out with the OP being a student at Lehigh, because she said “it was not the right place for” her.
I’m not married to the term “fit”, but it’s obvious the OP does not feel that Lehigh was the right university for her.
Frat = fraternity = male
Nope. We both should have read more closely. The OP said,
“As a woman, I felt treated horribly constantly.”
It’s not only men who go to frat houses.
With all due respect, we’re getting pretty close to blaming the victim here. What the OP experienced was reprehensible. Any college where that exists - and there are many - needs to clean up its act. There is no reason why any young woman should have to “fit” into that environment or leave.
Out of control fraternities can have equally negative consequences for young men. It sounds like they have in the situation described here. But there are worse. My cousin’s son’s best friend died in a fraternity hazing incident. Law suits have been brought against colleges and frats across the country where there have been other tragic results. No young man should have to “fit” into thus culture either.
It’s everywhere. A freshman died one month into Cornell just this year. Hazing, and the school did nothing. Poor parents were up to visit for parent’s weekend when it happened.
I am sorry you had a bad experience at a fraternity, but I do think it is rather unfair of you to indict the entire university due to your experience. And it would be very unfortunate if your post ended up scaring people off the Lehigh waitlist…
There is a lot more to a university than its greek system and I seriously doubt that everyone at Lehigh is just into partying, drugs, and alcohol. There are always those that do, and there are always lots that don’t and they are easier to find.
It seems like you still are in a highly fragile emotional state, and I hope you have sought and are under professional medical care.
@Lila Bear: Didn’t Lehigh University administrators close down Greek frat life at Lehigh due to the excesses ?
Yes, googling it shows that it did in January: https://www.inquirer.com/news/lehigh-university-hazing-drinking-greek-fraternity-20200128.html
The school I went to had the same thing happen to their Greek system.
My point is that there is more to a university than Greek life.
@Lila Bear: Thank you for posting the connection to the Philadelphia Inquirer article about closing down Greek frat life at Lehigh.
Also connects to a similiar article about Greek frat closings at Swarthmore College.
You are correct that excessive partying & hazing are a problem at more than just one or two schools.
Again, thank you for posting !
Agree. 100%.
If that’s what happened to the OP, it is reprehensible.
Why is it unfair?
This is a country that believes in transparency and full disclosure so we’d can have an informed citizenry. Hence, we have a constitutionally free press. Lehigh gets plenty of positive press and positive posts here. This is one post and is more than balanced by the rest of what’s said about Lehigh. But it is good information for buyer-beware college shoppers to have. They’re certainly not going to tell you this on the tour.
I don’t know how to put this delicately, so I’ll have to be blunt. With all due respect, I think it’s insulting for you to be questioning the emotional fragility of someone you’ve never met based on an Internet post and to then be recommending professional medical care, something which I doubt you are qualified to do. Please.
IMHO, it’s minimizing the risks of the fraternity system to be blaming the student who had the courage to post here. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the best friend of a relative of mine died a few years ago in a fraternity hazing incident. Fraternities are an an anachronism left over from a bygone era. They have no place on today’s college campuses. And I say that as someone who was in a frat when I was an undergrad and who hadn’t a good experience then.
Wow, exactly the reason my kids wouldn’t attend a University with Greek life. Thanks for the honestly.
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Students could avoid attending frat events.
The public statement by the Lehigh president is far more damning than anything the OP posted. Here are some excerpts:
“Several chapters have been disciplined, others have been warned, and all have been told in unequivocal terms that this behavior is unacceptable and antithetical to all we aspire to as a university. . . Our responsibility in this equation must be to not allow behavior that endangers our students and creates an unwelming environment.
“Still, we have not seen a change in behavior. If anything, the offensive and unhealthy behavior has intensified . . .”
This sounds exactly like what the OP described. Judging by the tone of the president’s statement, my guess is that the OP is not the only student who has transferred out of Lehigh over this, not the only student who has complained, and has likely been joined by parents who have pressured the administration as well.
The president’s statement suggests that the OP is a clear eyed young woman who has seen the excesses of this fraternity culture precisely for the destructive force that it is. It suggests that she is a young woman who knows her own mind and p who has the inner fortitude to take the affirmative action needed to put her own best interests first.
Nothing “fragile” about this kid. No need for “professional medical care.” It is the out of control party animals at these frats who need professional medical care. Kudos to you, ISummer21 for taking care of your own needs!
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That’s what she did. Did you read her post?