How do parent feel about Greek Life?

oldfort
Wed, 24 Nov 2010 12:11:21 +0000

Here is an analogy I would like to use:

When we first decided to move to NYC 30 years ago, my parents were very against it. They showed me all the crime reported in the paper and various news medias. We moved there anyway. My parents came to visit us often, and my mom said, “How come I haven’t seen any crime and where are they getting all those stories. They made it sound like there was a crime committed everyday on every street corner.” How many people are still afraid of going to NYC because of what they have heard on the media.

Now 30 years later, we have moved to Mexico City. My mother said, “Oh, there is a lot of crime, we read it in the paper all the time that people are killed, and the pollution is really bad.” My parents visited us 2 months ago. My mother said, “This is not what I have imagined at all. You have a nice park in front of the building, and we don’t feel unsafe when we go for walks.”

I told my mom that most of the time the news media only report exceptions. If there isn’t any sensationalism, no one would buy it or read it. If you looked at the total population in NYC, % of crimes is probably pretty low compared with other areas. MC is a very large, spread out city, it is not all safe, but where we live and work is very safe.

If news media only reports “students in Greek life have parties, just like other students living in dorms, and students in Greek life study and lead a fairly normal life,” do you think it would attract people’s attention? A report about a frat boy causing a scene sells a lot more paper than saying a frat boy is a 3.8 engineering student.