The Art of "Fratting"

            Last year for the Fourth of July, I went to visit my sister in Boston.  My sister goes to Drexel university, and every other semester they do co-ops.  She had been to Boston a few times to visit one of her friends from home.  She loved it, so for her second co-op she decided to get a job in Boston.  Her and her boyfriend lived with some of the people my sister had met on her previous trips, at a MIT frat house.  Now that I have been to numerous frats at Penn State I decided to compare Penn State frats with MIT frats.

                First I will talk about the appearance of the frats; inside and outside.  The appearance of the outside of Penn State frats is really nice.  They are huge houses and most of the time they have really big lawns.  These frats are located off campus but they are generally all in the same area on “frat row”.  At MIT the outside appearance of the houses are extremely different.  Because of the fact that MIT is located in a city, the houses are either really close together, or connected.  The houses are still extremely nice but it is really different than being in a college town; the neighbors on either side of the house were millionaires.

 

                The inside of the houses is a different story.  If you are visiting a Penn State frat house when there is not a party going on, it is somewhat clean, but you can tell that it goes through a lot of wear and tear.  During the party’s the house is repulsive.  It is extremely messy and there are spills all over the house.  The people at the frat also have a tendency to force everyone to go into the basement, which is crowded, and uncomfortably hot.  There are frat brother that are in charge of “working” the party, which includes giving people drinks, and guarding the doors.

 

The inside of the frat house I went to at MIT was gorgeous.  It had a huge staircase in the middle of the house that went up numerous stories.  There were also side staircases that were all painted differently (one of them was painted like a piano and when turned on, it played like a piano as you went up or down the stairs).  I got a tour of the house which was extremely unique compared to every other frat house I have been to.  Each room had something interesting to see, or do.  For example, one of the rooms, which was called the net room, had a giant net going across the whole ceiling of the room.  You could craw around, sit in it, or even hang on the bottom of it.  When the party was going on the house wasn't crowded or discusting.  You were free to roam the house and most of the party happened on the roof where we had an excellent view of the Boston fireworks.

 

Another difference between Penn State frats and MIT frats is the people that are in it and their mentalities.  At Penn State, most people that join frats are just doing it for the parties.  Their main hobbies include drinking and talking to girls.  They go through the process of rushing and pledging, picking out only certain people to join.  At MIT everyone in the frats are extremely accepting of everyone and everything.  They make program light shows and play with liquid nitrogen for fun.  Their rush activities include eating carbonated fruit and playing with power tools.  Joining a frat at MIT doesn't only mean getting to go to parties, but also making numerous connections with unbelievable intelligent people.

 

Overall, there are many differences between MIT and Penn State frat houses.  If you are looking to go to a crazy party, visit a Penn State frat any Thursday, Friday, or Saturday night.  If you are looking for a fun experience, where you talk to intelligent interesting people and have a great time, take a trip to an MIT frat house.