- That must've been such a bizarre image
of seeing these flailing, screaming, naked girls
in a river, but it was really scary.
It's kind of like a horror movie. (laughs)
(scary music)
What's up, y'all, my name is Joelle Park
and I was in Dartmouth class of 2019.
- Hi, my name is Huong Lynn and I went to UC Berkeley.
I don't wanna disclose the sorority
that I was pledging for. (light-hearted upbeat music)
- Hi, my name is Michelle Rivas.
Back in 2018, I was rushing for a sorority.
I'm not completely comfortable saying the name
of the sorority or the school,
but it was a crazy experience and I learned a lot from it.
- My school was in a very rural area.
We are on the border of New Hampshire and Vermont,
right next to a river, basically in the forest.
There are these laws about nudity in New Hampshire,
versus Vermont, where it's legal to derobe, to strip
in public in New Hampshire, but it's illegal to be naked.
So you can only take off your clothes.
(buzzes) You can't be naked,
whereas in Vermont you can legally, apparently,
be naked outside, but you can't derobe.
So the process of taking off your clothes is illegal there.
(simple, whimsical music) To get around this,
students developed this challenge,
where you strip in New Hampshire
and then swim across the Connecticut river,
which divides the two States and end up in Vermont.
And then, you just run back across the bridge
to put your clothes back on in New Hampshire.
My sorority had just had this paint party
with another fraternity, which is basically where
you cram a bunch of kids into a disgusting frat basement
and throw paint at each other. (pops and splats)
Sounds disgusting, in hindsight,
but in the moment, it was actually really fun.
We were all sticky and painty,
and one of the girls was like, "You know what?
"This would be the perfect time to conquer
"that river challenge because we're already wet and gross."
So I was like, "Screw it, I'll strip
"with you guys and jump into this river."
(splashes)
So it was this huge group of naked girls swimming across.
And at first it was all good and chill, very leisurely swim,
it wasn't too cold, but after a certain point,
it felt like we crossed this barrier
towards the center of the river.
And the current picked up furiously.
(suspenseful music) It was actually terrifying.
The girls were starting to hyperventilate
and trying to grab onto each other for flotation.
Horrible idea, by the way.
One of the girls in my sorority,
who later became one of my pretty good friends,
let's call her Lizzo. (dings)
Lizzo was the one to have the voice of reason
and be able to calm everyone down and say,
"It doesn't matter how far downstream we get pushed, as long
"as we make it to the other side.
"That is our destination.
"And do not fight upstream against the current."
And she was able to calm everyone down
to be able to be in a place where we would make it.
So eventually, after what felt like hours,
but was probably like five minutes,
we made it to the other side of the river,
way further down than we expect to be
and began the naked trek back up towards the bridge.
And of course, as we start crossing the bridge,
that's when we see the headlights of a campus police car,
rolling down the bridge towards where we are.
It was probable that they saw our clothes
at the other side of the bank, and were just like,
"Hm, there's probably a lot of people around here."
No one wants to get caught naked by the campus police
that are mostly men, often times.
So people dove, we were ready to hide.
Girls were in the bushes, girls were in the tall grass.
The angle that the pillar I was hiding
behind just blocked the highlights in the correct angle,
where the light wasn't shining on my bare ass naked body.
It was literally so close.
Like we were crouching and a car drove right by us.
And just because of the cover of night,
they did not see us huddling they're naked.
And the police went back up towards main campus
and we were able to go and get our clothes.
We just kind of marinated in how terrifying
of an experience that was.
It actually felt like a life or death situation,
where I was genuinely concerned
that there were certain girls
that were not going to make it.
And I was like, "People straight up could have died
in that moment," but I mean, if near death experiences
and nudity aren't sisterhood, then I don't know what is.
- When I was looking into sororities,
I had just transferred, so I was a junior at UC Berkely.
So I got invited to a party
from some of my sorority sisters.
And it was an invite around Thanksgiving time.
She just half-ass really said,
"Hey, we're having a friendsgiving,
"if you want to come over on Friday.
"And we're making a big Turkey
"and a lot of foods, so you're gonna love it."
'Cause she knows I'm a big foodie.
College student, you don't really get to eat a lot
of homemade foods, so I was really excited.
When I walked in, the sorority sister who invited me,
calls me into the kitchen.
So she's like, "You get first dibs, make your plate.
"And then, I'll tell everyone else come in."
Literally, it was a galore of all my favorite foods.
And I literally got the biggest plate
that they had in their apartment.
And I just started packing it with all of the food.
And then shortly after, I said bye.
And so the sorority sister who I invited, my friend,
we decided to walk home together.
So it was about a three block walk.
And by the second block,
my head started getting super woozy.
And I didn't wanna say anything,
'cause I thought it would kind of go away.
I said to my friend, I was like,
"Hey, I feel like really lightheaded
"and kinda weird, do you feel same thing?
"And my stomach kind of feels funky."
And she says, "Yeah, I've been trying to ignore it,
"but I've been feeling the exact same thing."
And we were just confused, we were like,
"Maybe there's something wrong with the food."
And by the time we got to the door
of the sorority house where I lived,
we couldn't look at each other without dying laughing.
And I just started feeling really tingly.
I just stopped talking and I texted the sorority sister,
who made all the food, and I said,
"Hey, I don't know what was up with the food,
"but I feel really wonky right now."
Then, she sent me a picture of a giant bucket
of bright green neon weed butter.
And she said, "Everything was made with this.
"I'm so sorry I forgot to tell you."
That was the moment I realized that literally everything
that I ate was heavily infused with this weed butter.
My mind was blown.
I just immediately thought of how big
that plate that I ate was.
Like the most I've ever had was the little brownies,
like this is like massive amounts.
I literally said to everyone, I said,
"I have to go to my room and go to bed.
"I can't do anything else tonight.
"I'm just gonna try to sleep this off."
And I was literally in bed, just seeing like images
for a good like eight hours, and then, by the next morning,
I finally was feeling back to normal.
(eerie music)
But for a long time it felt
like it was never gonna go away.
The most ridiculous thing that's ever happened
to me, during my time in that sorority.
- So at first I never even planned on joining a sorority.
I've been having trouble making friends
and so it'd be really cool to maybe join a sorority.
The whole reason that I rushed this specific sorority was
just because they were giving out flyers.
The girl who gave me the flyer, she was super nice.
She was like, "Who are you, what are you into?
"Maybe you'd be a good fit for our sorority.
"We're gonna have a party tonight.
"This is like the week to do it, we're rushing this week."
I went to three events.
The first two were just parties and mixers.
The last party of like the whole rushing,
I felt actually really happy going into it.
I thought I had like a pretty good chance
of being included in the sorority.
I was going to the party and when I got there,
it was actually held at a fraternity house.
People were just mixing and mingling,
there was a lot of people and then all the girls
that were rushing for the sorority had to huddle up,
and the president of the sorority, I guess, she told us,
"So this is your last way to show your loyalty to us."
And we were all like looking at each other
like, "Okay, what's going on?"
And she said, "We want you guys to take off your clothes
and get in the pool," and I was like, "What?"
And this was me and like 10 other girls.
And it's like, well prove your loyalty to us.
And we were just looking at each like, "What's going on?"
And I pulled one of the girls aside
and I was telling her, "Like are you really gonna do this?"
And she was like, "I really wanna get
into this sorority, I really wanna do it."
And I told her, "No, I'm not doing that, I'm not."
And then, when I refused to do it,
I was kicked out of the party.
Just like that, I was kicked out.
It was a pretty messed up experience, honestly.
It made me feel like devalued, I honestly felt kind of
like I'm not trying to be dramatic,
but like worthless, honestly.
It made me never wanna rush a sorority, again.
And I'm a senior now and I don't plan on doing it.
Unfortunately, it just tainted the experience for me.
I was only 19 at the time and you know, impressionable,
but still, I held my ground and I'm just happy
that I didn't let anyone overstep my boundaries.
If there was a silver lining, I'm still friends
with some of the girls who were rushing.
Found something that I was passionate about,
which is politics, and I'm now friends
with like-minded people in that club.
So in the end, it all worked out. (laughs)
- Joining the wrong sorority might give you
some bad experiences, when you could save
that experience and have it be really, really great
if you wait for the right one.
- I never recommend to anyone
to put yourself in harm's way.
Do something that you're uncomfortable with
for the sake of bonding and for the sake
of feeling included in the group.
A lot of those girls became my very, very good friends
throughout the rest of college and even 'til now,
which I'm really thankful for.
There was nothing better I could have done
for my self and self growth, outside of going
to college than join the sorority.
It taught me so much about female empowerment
and how much women can do when they're bonded together.
It definitely allowed me to gain a sense of confidence
and realizing that I have the ability
to see an issue in a social space
that I really value and change it.
(bright, hopeful music)