and i’ve come to terms by Cami M. '23

Well hello there it’s been a while and I’m am ridden with guilt and embarrassment that I haven’t blogged in a while, BUT in my defense there has been endless things happening all at once.

Most importantly:

1) I finished my internship.

I finished my internship with Microsoft this past summer and got a shiny new return offer to go back and work on Minecraft next summer. Yes it is just as exciting as it sounds.

2) Classes start tomorrow.

And I am terrified but excited but mostly terrified but REALLY excited. I’m taking 21G.704,⁠01 Spanish IV. Please practice spanish with me. CMS.300,⁠02 Intro to Videogame Theory CMS.616,⁠03 Games and Culture and 6.034.⁠04 Artificial Intelligence I’m actually incredible excited for a lot of these classes, but mostly just the prospect of being able to sit in a lecture hall again and walk from class to class instead of being cooped up in my room.

But really the whole point of this blogpost was

3) I am happy and loving living in the Delta Phi Epsilon house (Delta Phi Housilon, if you will).

I figured it was incredibly important to post this update since I kind of left off on a somewhat unsure note in my last blogpost, but a lot has happened since then.

More and more people moved into the house and I’ve gotten to know a lot of people in it. The house is alive with chatter and laughter and excitement and it makes me incredibly giddy knowing that I get to live in the house with essentially 16 of my best friends.

Moreover, recruitment happened. Formal recruitment is essentially the process where potential new members (PNMs) come in and meet sororities in a highly structured format across the span of three days. It usually involves meeting every sorority the first day, ranking your top sororities you’d like to speak to again, speaking to your top ranked on the second day, and then finally narrowing it to your top one or two on the third day before receiving a bid, aka an invite to join.

I’ve never been on the PNM side, let alone the deepher side, of recruitment because I did informal recruitment. Essentially Delta Phi Epsilon hosted a variety of events like house tours and coffee chats and tours of Newbury street and I simply went up, talked to some deephers, and by the end of the week received a bid. It was a lot less effort in my opinion, but it’s also a lot less structured and perhaps more intimidating if you’re scared of just showing up to events. Different strokes for different folks.

All in all, recruitment. Is. Exhausting.

But it’s a lot more fun than I thought it would be. I was originally intimidated by the fact I had to make conversation with complete strangers in 12 minute increments fourteen times, but the conversations went rather smooth. And throughout this whole process, I really, really bonded with my sorority. In between rounds we’d be laughing in the back room, gushing over the PNMs we had met that day or just talking about the general excitement of being back at school. It was so nice to finally have all of us together after being virtual for so long and putting faces to names and walls of text.

I think, though, there were also some more noticeable somber moments during recruitment, as the stereotypes of sorority life and specifically our sorority caught up to us.

A lot of people told me in my freshman year not to join DPhiE. It was…really interesting to see some of the reasoning for it. A lot of people told me it was the weird sorority. Others told me it was a “queer” sorority, and that somehow diminished its value and “coolness” in the eyes of MIT. A lot of that conversation and verbiage really reminded me of the way people described Random — a small, queer, and incredibly misunderstood community made up of the most interesting, humble, and kind people I’ve ever met.

I eventually ended up joining and even now I can still see hints of stereotypes that pervade our space, especially during recruitment. Some people at recruitment didn’t even bother giving us a chance, just flat out telling us they don’t want to join DPhiE. They hadn’t even talked to us, yet they’d already made up their mind and passed their judgment.

And it made me ask myself: Why? What was I doing wrong?

It’s hard not to take it personally. It would make me angry, too, especially when I looked around and saw some of the most talented and incredible people I’ve ever had the privilege of meeting and seeing how some people won’t even bother getting to know us — they just flat out deny us. It felt incredibly…unfair to be labeled the way that we were and to have this stigma placed against us for something that entirely was not our fault, something that was motivated by high-school-like gossip and stupid popularity contests. In a way, I’m hoping that this blogpost will change some people’s minds and really show just how fucking cool my sorority is and how much I really, really love being a part of it.

While I had initially been extremely apprehensive to live in the house since I wasn’t as close to DPhiE as I had hoped, recruitment and prepping for recruitment really helped solidify my decision to live in the house and helped me grow closer to my sorority a lot more than I had thought it would.

Boba runs, movie sessions, even just walking across the bridge with some of my fellow deephers, made me feel so much more at home. It’s so interesting having this other community now I can call my home.

It’s somewhat bizarre to think about, how I was just able to find this new community that is so genuine and so kind and has accepted me for who I am in such a short amount of time. I really feel as if I’ve come home and found a place where I can unabashedly be my loud, rambunctious self.

I didn’t expect to grow so close, but I genuinely would feel comfortable if I had to talk one-on-one with every single person in that sorority or spend a day with them which is really rare. In fact, I don’t know if I even ever felt that way with Random.

I think this bodes well for the semester. Already, I’ve accomplished so much and done so many things for the first time. I survived formal recruitment. I’ve found my place in my sorority and living group. I visited New House for the first time and met a kickass group of people. I, one of the most introverted people, was able to hold genuine conversations with absolute strangers for three days.

There’s been so much growth that I’ve seen in myself, and really I owe so much of that to DPhiE. I was initially so nervous I would be too loud or too…Cami for my sorority, but in fact, I think they just bring out my best qualities.

From (playfully) bullying Megan to starting my own DPhiE fight club to talking about how we’re hot Aquariuses with Eliza to shaming me on my finsta with Bhuvna, I have really, really found my place and a group of people I am comfortable calling my family.

Of course, there’s still a lot to learn about everyone and so many more events and fun things to do and see. BID NIGHT is tonight aka where we bring in everyone who got a bid and they get to explore the house and meet everyone and really see if they want to come and join and I am SO SO SO excited to meet and see everyone.

I’m really proud of my sorority for just coming so far, having only been formed in 2015. We’ve grown to now 60 members and hopefully will be welcoming so many more tonight.

I don’t quite know where I’m going with this — this blog was more of meant to be a dump for me to really explore the nuances of what it means to be in a sorority. All I know is that I’m really fucking proud to be part of this sorority. I was initially so hesitant to join one, especially given the long, long difficult history of sororities and its exclusivity and its past. But seeing the way that the MIT DPhiE chapter is at the forefront of diversity and inclusion initiatives, the way that our chapter was the first to accept nonbinary students in the recruitment process and push all international chapters to do the same, the way that we constantly open conversations around diversity and what it means to be in a sorority and how its our duty to ensure everyone is accepted and welcome…it makes it a lot easier to accept my place here.

There’s a lot left to be done. There’s so much more to learn and do and see. And I am excited to see where the future takes me this semester.