250 Take 4 - Frat Boy

This is the roughest of the drafts, but it's been quite some time since I've written about my fraternity experience and thus struggled with how I wanted to present it. Additionally, I wanted to push myself to write about something that wasn't related to education.

[At nineteen, I led the third smallest business in a competitive market with a limited number of firms (14), relatively high barriers to entry, and strong brand loyalty. Despite these limiting factors, we became second largest in the industry in two years time. Not only had our firm grown, but our client-list had expanded substantially and we were able to build our corporate reputation through peer and national recognition. Much of this success was due to our internal re-focusing on the principles of our organization; fellowship, leadership, scholarship and service. This organization was the Nu Chapter of the Kappa Sigma Fraternity at William and Mary and my experience as president highlights the importance, and even educational function, of fraternities. While they are labeled 'frats' with many negative stereotypes, social fraternities provide invaluable experiences not found within the classroom or other campus organizations. A fraternity is an incubator for management because of large membership rolls, constant and multi-faceted event planning, conflict and risk management, some of the largest budgets for student organizations, and routine reporting to regulatory bodies within the university and to the fraternity at large. Furthermore, through ad hoc and permanent committees, growth in organizational leadership is not limited to the executive boards of fraternities, but can be delegated and fostered throughout the members. This 'incubator' had led to such a high percentage of leaders in business and government with backgrounds of fraternal membership and overall I'm proud to be referred to as a 'frat boy.']

Word Count: 247

Day 1 of the campaign went extremely well. I'm so proud of the student leaders and the maturity that many of the students are showing throughout these discussions. My main concern is how to find useless products now that Billy Mays isn't telling me what to buy.