Nearly every time I come home during breaks in the school year and see friends and family I haven’t seen since summer, I get asked a few common questions: “How’s Notre Dame?” “Do you have a boyfriend?” “You aren’t in a sorority, are you?” After answering the first two questions to the best of my ability, I always struggle to answer the final question. My typical response is always, “No, Notre Dame doesn’t have Greek life, but our dorms are very similar to sororities and fraternities.” Usually this response ends the conversation, but I always think to myself how exactly Greek life compares to the dorm life at Notre Dame. Now, halfway through my sophomore year, I’ve lived on campus long enough to understand why our community life reflects all of the best qualities of Greek life while added its own unique traditions.
Instead of making the choice to rush at other universities, Notre Dame students have the luxury of automatically being put into a dorm that has its own unique traditions. For girls especially, there’s no pressure to buy the perfect spread of expensive outfits for bid week or to “fit i”n with a certain sorority house. By randomly selecting students to live in each dorm, the Office of Housing allows us to make friends with a variety of people with different interests, majors, and backgrounds. I think that one of the negatives of Greek life in sororities in particular is the inevitable conformity. Yet just because a committee didn’t specifically select every person in the dorm, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t people who share similar interests.
If I went to a different school that did offer the choice of going Greek, I would have loved to rush. Bid night, endless mixers, Bigs and Littles, philanthropy, and having an automatic group of best friends all sounds appealing, but they come at a cost. The dorms at Notre Dame each have similar traditions without the sacrifice of exclusion.
For example, Frosh-O celebrates initiation into the Notre Dame community, which is comparable to bid night without the drama. Each dorm has formals, their own charity causes, and even signature events, like Breen-Philips “Meal Auction” or Walsh’s “Football 101.” Some female dorms such as Badin have created committees to pair “Big Sisters” with First Years, or “Little Sisters,” one of the most popular Greek traditions. Unlike sororities, Bigs and Littles in Badin were paired based on interests and majors so the more experienced students can help the First Years transition into college life as smoothly as possible. Big and Little tanks were included!
Although it can never truly be explained in words, the Notre Dame interhall community is unlike dorm life anywhere else in the country. Similar to Greek life, each dorm maintains a unique identity with colors, mascots, and traditions to match. Notre Dame dorms and Greek houses each succeed at building their own types of close-knit communities. However, the Irish way ultimately trumps the exclusive Greek way of life by integrating the entire campus community, not just the 10% to 25% of the university.
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