Beginning of Investigative Report

I step into the total silence of the 4th floor Paterno Library to meet up with the rest of my pledge brothers. There are sixteen of us rushing to join Phi Kappa Sigma, AKA the Skulls. I walk to the right of the desk in front, catching the wandering eyes of many people who seem to think my quiet entrance disturbed their studying. can smell the books on the shelves and hear the clicking of the overaggressive types. I walk through the glass doors to a side room, where I sit down at a long table that resembles those of the time of King Arthur. This is what my pledge class has to do Monday through Thursday from seven to ten p.m. for the duration of pledging. We have mandatory study hours to ensure that are grades stay up during pledging. In most cases, kids' grades actually get better because they get way ahead on their work.

"These study hours definitely helped me keep my GPA up during pledging," said sophomore Will Griffith, one of the two rush chairs for Phi Kappa Sigma. He spoke about how the mandatory study hours helped convince his parents to let him join a fraternity as well. "They were really hesitant because they thought it would make my grades drop. The study hours are basically the main reason why I'm here." Many parents are reluctant to let their kids join fraternities or sororities because of the affect it has on grades. These study hours greatly ease the pain of all parents. I also spoke to the sophomore pledge master for my fraternity, Pete Cusick. Pete told me about how the parties and other such things didn't do anything to his GPA. "Honestly, I thought I was gonna haveta party too much. But it was good, like, we had fun but it never got out of control."

There are a good amount of facts that I found during my research. The first I got from the brothers, who told me that their house GPA is a 3.3, which is one of the highest on campus for a particular fraternity or sorority. Another good fact I found was that there can only be a certain amount of alcohol at any fraternity party so no one gets too drunk and misses any class. The other two face that I found were that since 1825, all but three Presidents have been frat guys and 76% of all Congressmen and Senators were in a fraternity. Therefore, if you want to do something great in your life, joining a fraternity is a good way to start (http://www.betagammaepsilon.com/index.php?page=rush/frats).

Two areas that I came across in my research were that the much greater success of fraternity men versus regular college guys as well as how there is actually a higher GPA in Greek life than outside of it. These are two very interesting topics I will look into.