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<p>It’s clearly not the case that independents are limited to hanging out in the library. For one thing, there are over 900 Registered Student Organizations at UIUC. See: [Illini</a> Union - Registered Organization Directory](<a href=“http://www.union.illinois.edu/involvement/rso/a-z_list.aspx]Illini”>http://www.union.illinois.edu/involvement/rso/a-z_list.aspx) Only a fraction of these are Greek letter organizations.</p>
<p>However, I attended UIUC for a year and did find that choosing not to go Greek significantly limited my social life. Much of the social life at UIUC happens at Greek events. Greek social life (e.g., parties) tends to supplant social life which would be open to anyone at many other universities. Obviously, Greeks have far more access to Greek social life than independents do.</p>
<p>The situation is far worse for independent men than independent women. In reality, independent women are much more likely to be welcome at parties and otherwise included in Greek social life than independent men are. Independent men usually need to know someone in the fraternity throwing a party to attend that party.</p>
<p>By contrast, I later attended McGill. There, only about 1% of students go Greek. At McGill, I had much more access to the social life the university offered than I did at UIUC.</p>
<p>Being independent and in Engineering or Computer Science is a double whammy. In these majors, one has far less time to get involved on campus compared to students in non-technical majors. So the alternatives to the Greek system for meeting people are far less accessible in this case.</p>
<p>In summary, not going Greek at UIUC does indeed limit one’s social life to a significant degree.</p>
<p>I ultimately transferred out of UIUC. This wasn’t for academic reasons, as I had a 3.5 GPA. The unacceptable social life for students who choose not to go Greek was one of the major reasons why I transferred out.</p>