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IT Technology

Where Are All of the IT Fraternities? 84

Posted by Cliff from the professional-brotherhood dept.
SteakandcheeseUm asks: "Upon meandering around the net today, I was displeased to find that there seems to be a lack of professional academic fraternities that are dedicated to Information Technology or Computer Forensics students. Has anyone here ever come upon a group that does such a thing? Would anyone be interested in joining if one were to be founded?"
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Where Are All of the IT Fraternities? More

Where Are All of the IT Fraternities?

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  • Yeah, its called... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Ummagumma ( 137757 ) on Wednesday November 17, 2004 @11:48PM (#10850096) Journal
    ...the unemployment line.

    *rimshot*

    Thanks, I'll be here all week

    • Preferences in hiring (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Actually, I think the reason this guy is posting the question is because he wants to stay out of the unemployment line. Frat members are known to give fellow members preference when hiring (for no good reason other than tradition). The submitter is probably one of the millions of average Joes who went into CS in the dot-com era thinking it was the road to riches. Now that jobs are hard to come by, this guy needs every unfair advantage he can get to land a job.

      Before you mod me as flamebait I ask you, wh

      • I joined a Frat, 6 years of my life spent wondering what day it was and what that foul tast in my mouth was... I loved it! Though it wasn't an all IT frat, lotsofus IT 'dOOdZ' were in it for exactly that, the comradery, the booz and the girls :)

        And of course, when hiring, you'll easily call on someone you know from your past!
      • Few things:

        First, he's talking about a professional society, like Eta Kappa Nu (The Electrical Engineering Professional Honor Society), not about a Social Fraternity.

        Secondly, please don't use "frat", many Fraternity men tend to find it offensive. It implies a group like you see in Animal House, which despite public opinion is the minority of Social Fraternities. You wouldn't shorten "Country" to "cunt" would you?

        As for why you would want to join a fraternity, well it depends. At some major Engineerin [kettering.edu]

        • Secondly, please don't use "frat", many Fraternity men tend to find it offensive. It implies a group like you see in Animal House, which despite public opinion is the minority of Social Fraternities. You wouldn't shorten "Country" to "cunt" would you?


          I wouldn't shorten "country" to "cunt" because c-u-n-t are not the first four letters of "country". F-r-a-t are the first four letters of "fraternity".

        • Great post. MIT actually has an even higher percentage of male students in fraternities - was about 55% until a few years ago when the administration started getting hostile to the fraternities in the wake of the Kruger death at MIT. Anybody who went to college in the Boston area in the late 90s will remember this event, it caused the social scene in Boston to start sucking hard as all the universities cracked down on any socializing that involved underage drinking - what an anal country we live in.

          Anywa
  • ACM [acm.org]

    Unless you meant fraternities that are in the Greek system, in which case I have no idea. Fraternities are about social networking and getting drunk at wild parties, not coding and playing HL2. :)

    • Re:ACM (Score:2, Interesting)

      by zeath ( 624023 )
      Fraternities are about social networking and getting drunk at wild parties, not coding and playing HL2

      Though I was not a member, a CS major that graduated the year before me was the president of a frat, and most of his pledges were involved at one point or another in our daily Medal of Honor between-class routine in the lab. Of course this was a small college, and "pledges" numbered less than half a dozen, as did my graduating CS class.
    • Well, there are both coding and LAN parties. Lots of social activities involving computers and other nerdly things. And as we all know, everything gets better with beer, including the code you write!
    • I was in a social fraternity and participated in both social activities (i.e. getting wasted and making out w/ females) as well as slashdot type activities (i.e. playing Unreal Tournament). Most of my fraternity brothers were CS or IS majors, so I was able to enjoy the social benefits of a fraternity AND still play LAN games at the house whenever I wanted too... I wish I was back in skewl.
  • What about your local LUG? Those tend to be fairly IT-centric.
    • ABS_O_LU_TELY Lugs are university affiliated 90% of the time. Most, however, include interests in closed-source software. So LuGs are much more than just Linux user groups, in effect they are computer-enthusiast groups.
  • Chi Sigma Iota and Upsilon Pi Epsilon.

  • You mean like this? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Goosey ( 654680 )
    AITP [aitp.org]? My college seems to push for everyone to join this.

  • What about... (Score:5, Funny)

    by adamjaskie ( 310474 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @12:07AM (#10850191) Homepage
    ...Lambda Lambda Labmda?

  • If you want progressive generations referring to peers as "maddog", "barfy" or "booger", in the future go for it. I've always thought that this type of unimaginative, buddy-building naming was pretty useless. Apparently it's a character-building experience though.

    • >Apparently it's a character-building experience though.

      yup. for those who cant build them by themselves.
    • When I was in college, I refered to frats as the "Rent a buddy system." I had plenty of friends and thought the frats were for people who had to join a club to find friends.

      Now, 16 years later, I wish I had joined a frat for the many contacts I would have made. I work with some people that were in frats in college and it seems we can't go to a seminar, conference, or business without someone recognizing on of their 'brothers'. Makes for easy introductions.
      • Gee doesn't slashdot fill that bill? Maybe there should be an international slashdot conference. All we need is a big enough hall someplace that has 20,000 pizza places, 10,000 Chinese places, 9,000 sushi places, and 45 OC-3s. Could be interesting when you show up you type in your user name and password and it prints a tag with your name color coded for your level of karma. You get a special tag if you have ever had a story accepted and a special tag if you ever complained about a story not being accepted.
  • /dev/Phi

    I would join something... but I'm already in the IEEE Computer society and some canadian clubs aswell. (CIPS and a few others)
    • some canadian clubs as well. Don't worry, we can get you out. Just don't wear a pink tie [uwaterloo.ca] or all is lost.
      • History notes: Ralph Stanton (the original pink-tie-wearer at UW) eventually became head of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Manitoba, where he was occasionally mistaken for the janitor. Rumour has it he's gay (not that there's anything wrong with that!). I believe he retired before or around the time I was at the UofM (1983-88).
  • not really a frat, but it's a community thing :)

  • Eta Kappa Nu (Score:3, Informative)

    by cide1 ( 126814 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @01:37AM (#10850807) Homepage
    Also known as HKN is a mix between a co-ed social fraternity and a student organization for Electrical and Computer Engineers. One must pledge to join, must be at least a Junior, and must be above a certain class rank. The organization has been around for over 100 years. My chapter (Beta Chapter at Purdue), was an underground society for a period of time. We run the lounge and snackbar in the EE building at Purdue, perform community service, have get togethers most fridays, have professionals come in and speak to us. It is quite an active organization, found at most top engineering schools. Remember, HKN, "The Nice Guys".
    • I second that

      I was in HKN at the University of Michigan. Joining was one of the best decisions I made while I was there.

      We did various service projects, provided tutoring, and ran a snack bar in the EECS building. It was also great for job networking - at each bi-weekly meeting we'd have a member of the industry come give a talk and it gave you a chance to hand out resumes and build your contacts.

      What was interesting was that since we were a social and service society selected from the top students of ou
    • We run the lounge and snackbar in the EE building at Purdue

      Hey, I always bought my morning soft drink at that place to drink during ENGR 100. 16oz glass bottles back then, probably plastic now though.

      Of course I changed majors the next year and hardly ever went into the EE building again.

      memories....

      On, topic

      There used to be a DPMA chapter at Purdue but I believe that DPMA changed it's name to the AITP(Association of Information Technology Professionals). It still has a chapter at Purdue!
  • Sorry but if you think frat's are about anything other than getting drunk and fucking sorority whores, you've got another thing coming. At least that's the way it is in my town. :\
  • That great fraternal organization I(ota) Eta Pi? Or how about the great Tappa Tappa Kegga? Oh wait, even better, the great engineer fraternity of Nu Rho Delta (NRD)?
  • It's hard for me to imagine a 'geek frat'... they're for people with spare time, an appetite for socializing and (often) alcohol, and a future need for business contacts. I dunno about anyone else, but regardless of where I am in life now, in college I couldn't have managed any of that even if I had the inclination and a snail's chance in hell of getting into one.

    Frats are, as I said, good for making friends you'll need for business contacts in your adult life. But the IT world doesn't really work that w
    • For me, being in a Fraternity gave me the social skills and confidence I need. Keeping in mind the state of the computing field today, and getting ahead in it, social skills / people skills are a requirement. Had I not met a group of guys that does way more than just drink (ie community service, leadership initiatives on campus, general philanthropy) I don't think I would ever have the courage to make it through a fricken job interview... IT fraternities are exactly what IT people need... to help them get

    • Re:Do you know what frats are FOR? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by hoggoth ( 414195 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @10:14AM (#10853129) Journal
      > making [...] business contacts
      > the IT world doesn't really work that way

      You're in for a surprise if you believe this. Unless you are content to be a code-monkey your whole life, you will need to sell yourself and you will need contacts. The more the better. Every GOOD job I've ever had came through a personal contact. The lousy ones came through recruiters. Now that I run my own business I would starve to death without contacts.

      • Most people are content to just code for their whole life. Myself, for example. I'd see doing contract work or moving into management as a fate worse than death- I'd rather quit and flip burgers (hell, I've done that, it wasn't that bad). Looking at the employee:self employed ratio in this country, I'm not alone.
  • Robot House?

  • What about (Score:2, Funny)

    by JamesP ( 688957 )
    Sigma Lambda Alpha Sigma Eta Delta Omega Theta???

  • My uncle was a triangle, the only greek frat at University of Cincinnati without a greek name. They were an all engineering fraternity, but he dropped out of it because he couldn't get enough time in to study.
    • I, too, was a UC Triangle. I dropped out cause when I didn't show up for like a year, they sent me to a collection agency to force me to pay my dues.

      Real brotherhood, there....

      Granted, if I didn't already live in a house with a buncha engineers, and didn't have a serious gf at the time (she ended up being married to me), and I lived in the Triangle house, it would have been to my benefit. They are (well, were) all great studiers and worked together on homework and such. But if you didn't live with th
    • My uncle was a triangle, the only greek frat at University of Cincinnati without a greek name. They were an all engineering fraternity,[snip]

      IIRC there are three fraternities that don't have greek letters as names, Acacia, Farmhouse (Ag related house)and Triangle (Engineers, Architects, and Scientists)

      Personally I am a member of Triangle Fraternity on the Nebraska campus. As with any orginization, you only get out of it what you put into it, but if you were looking for a greek community (Unlike ASM or

  • Is it just me? I thought that frats were exclusivfely anti-IT. Back in the day when I was in college, the whole idea of an IT, a.k.a. 'Geek' frat was just against everything the comp.sci kids stood for. We stood for individuality, not conformity. We made fun of the frat people to no end. And we never felt we had to be part of a bigger group just to have a party and get wasted and/or lucky (yes, on the rare occasion, it did happen!!!)

    Today however, there are enough professional associations around if y
    • Now what I want to discuss, is how come there aren't any IT-centric unions? IT folk tend to work long hours and we don't necessarily get paid for it either, as my former boss said, "it's expected that you put in 60-80 hours a week and get paid for 40".

      You don't nescessarily need a union for that. Check what your local labo(u)r laws [canada.com] can do for you.
      • I've tried it in the past. The response is always "That's the way we do thing shere. If you don't like it, you can leave." Every business that I worked for in Canada seems to have that attitude.

        Does anybody have any ideas on fighting for your rights while still maintaining a relatively good relationship with your employer?

        I have no problem with a rare meeting that for whatever reason has to be done after-hours... But when you're told that it's a matter of company survival that you attend this unpaid

  • Not a frat, in that it's co-ed and doesn't paddle incoming members, but Computer Science House at Rochester Institute of Technology is a house full of geeks: http://www.csh.rit.edu/ [rit.edu]

  • Ahem (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Eil ( 82413 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @10:24AM (#10853215) Homepage Journal

    Geeks already have many fraternities.

    Here, we call this one Slashdot. There are other, smaller, close-knit fraternities all over the place as well that massquerade as Linux/BSD user groups, mailing lists, IRC channels, web forums, and newsgroups.

    (Point being that geeks are no less capable of socilization, organization, and banding together for a cause, they just prefer to do so through primarily electronic means. There are also cons that are sorta like ad-hoc fraternities, when you think about it.)
  • As the title says: You're not interesetd, trust me.

    I almost ended up greek but ended up not following through with it...between the insane cost of dues, and the jumping through other people's hoops for no reason other than to "fit in" it just wasn't worth it.

    Most of em were great guys, and it was a fun house (but it did kill my grades while I was there.) but I just couldn't see myself there for a lifetime.

    Especially because I am switching majors and hopefully never studying computer science again after
  • i am a nerd and have found myself very at home in a fraternity, despite me being the only technologically inclined brother. why did i join? drinking and friends, you got it.
    but here at tulane we do haev a geek fraternity, delta tau delta. during rush week i stopped by for lunch and witnessed an arguement between two brothers. the dispute climaxed with one brother shaking his calculator at the other. if thats not a geek fraternity, i dont know what is.
  • Sigma Phi Delta [sigphi.org] - International Social Fraternity of Engineers - founded Arpil 11, 1924.

    We've been around for some time now. Open to all engineers and computer scientists, and occaisional students of other sciences, upon approval by National.

    I was a member of Alpha chapter, at Univ. of Sothern California, in Los Angeles - you might recognize us from the #1 spot in the BCS. Fight on!

    We have chapters in Canada, as well, and we recently got a chapter in Bangladesh! I enjoyed my time at the house, and encour
  • http://www.forensicfocus.com/ [forensicfocus.com] Another community (this time based around computer forensics). Not sure if you could call it a "fraternity" as such but certainly there are a fair number of students (and those planning to become students). Jamie
  • it really isnt safe for geeks to join frats.
  • There are a lot of comments about what a "Frat" is - a bunch of beer-guzzling pig-headed college students is the typical one. But it's a stereotype, and like many stereotypes it has a kernel of truth, but is also wrong in many ways. Having been in one, and almost quitting at a later point in disgust, I've seen both sides of the coin.

    The concept behind a Fraternity is just what the name implies - Brotherhood. It's a group of guys that are in the group to support each other through the trials of college (

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