Behind the Letters
Written by Melanie Garlock, a member of Sigma Kappa and the 2018 Vice President of Recruitment Counselors to the Panhellenic Council.
I was an 18-year-old girl, living in a shoe box, and I only knew a handful of people from my hometown. So, I made the choice to go through UGA Panhellenic’s Recruitment process with the hope to make this massive university feel a bit smaller. Naturally, my freshman year consisted of eating my way through all of UGA’s dining halls, throwing my sorority’s hand sign in any picture I could (I apologize), and finding “my future bridesmaids” or how I like to say it “finding the people I will be a bridesmaid for.”
Although these times are ones I will cherish forever, a week serving as a recruitment counselor presented me with a new perspective and reminded me my purpose of being here. For the past two years, I, probably like many others have succumbed to the idea that simple Greek letters define not just myself but those around me. Yet, as I stated to my sweet PNMs during the week of recruitment that, “they bring the worth to the things around them not the other way around," I found truth. Truth, in the idea that it is people who bring kindness, humility, laughter and joy to something and that it is us who define what our letters stand for not the other way around. Letters mean nothing if there is no one behind them, but they can serve as a platform for good, if you allow them to.
