How to Convey that Sorority Life Isn’t Always Like the Movies While Abroad
My Big Fat Greek Study Abroad Experience
I decided to study abroad in the fall of my junior year — leaving my comfortable home at Rhodes College was difficult yet exciting. I have a great support system at Rhodes, which includes my lacrosse team, friends and sorority sisters. I was hopeful to make new friends while abroad in Sydney, Australia. I had just taken a little sister in my sorority the semester before, and knew it would be hard to miss out on fun events with her, but I was also eager to go abroad and make new memories. Taking a hiatus from Greek life was strange, but being in Australia and making all new friends was an experience I would not trade for the world.Making Greek Friends While Abroad

Trying to Explain Sororities to Australians
The residential college I lived in while at the University of Sydney housed all girls in the undergraduate building and both males and females in the post graduate building. Living in the undergraduate building was what I would imagine living in a sorority house is like. They had shared bathrooms, a dining hall, lots of sports and artistic activities to get involved in and mandatory hall dinners on Monday nights. Lots of these aspects mirrored what my Greek experience has been like at my home university (outside of living all together, because at my small liberal arts school the sorority houses are simply meeting spaces where we hang out and hold events). So, when my new Australian friends were asking me what it was like to be in a sorority, I responded by saying it is much like living in a residence college. This response kind of shocked them because they assumed sorority life would mirror they had seen in movies, and while there is some truth to that representation, it is often over simplified.Being Greek Isn’t Necessarily Like Legally Blonde
Being abroad really opened my eyes to how Greek life is perceived from an outsider whose only context is pop culture. My Australian friends frequently made references to Greek life in movies, like Legally Blonde, and asked if that was what it was actually like.