Heavy amounts of alcohol, public embarrassment, and deprivation of sleep are just some examples of what college students have to do to join a fraternity or sorority. Hazing is a dangerous tradition consisting of an intense initiation process to join a group or club. While many people like me are against it the opposite is true as well.
A lot of college students every year go through the hazing process for the benefit of parties and living with similar people. Through the years fraternities have used this process to choose who is suited to join the fraternity. But recently, these experiences have gotten out of hand. One night in 2015, a Penn State student who was pledging to be in a fraternity consumed a signficant amount of alcohol in a single night. Instead of helping his fraternity “brothers” decided he would be fine and to let him sleep it off. Later that night, while he was still drunk and sick he stumbled and fell down a staircase and died. This is just one example of the 105 college students whose lives have been lost due to hazing in the past 24 years. 60 of those involve the presence of alcohol. “It’s not a good thing at the end of your day. If you’re going to be friends, why put them through that and then switch up and be friends with them,” said Patrick Glibowski, a current member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon at West Chester.
There is no reason that this process has to be this intense. There are safer and simpler ways to initiate someone that doesn’t result in sickness or death. “The main attraction is the parties and the social part,” said Macauley Murdock, a current student at Duquesne. While it may be fun at the moment it can have serious short or long-term effects on your physical and mental health. One college student has died from hazing every year for the past 59 years. Safer options need to be explored to protect the physical and mental health of these students. Perhaps an initiation process, that is still intense but not life-threatening such as public pranks or challenges with other people pledging. This would cause fewer illnesses and deaths while still proving your loyalty to your future brothers.
