&gt; The other possibility is that going to the parties is a good use of time, and that is where many students develop their networks.<p>This was kind of my experience. I went to university two states away from where I grew up, knowing a grand total of one person there. I had the academic end more or less handled, but my first semester at university was the loneliest I&#x27;ve ever been in my life. I made good grades, but otherwise I was miserable, depressed and lonely.<p>It&#x27;s easy to meet people in high school. Most high schools are small compared to major universities, and you have classes with those in your grade. Many of them you&#x27;ve been around for years. But now you&#x27;re thrown into a new setting, with thousands of people. It&#x27;s hard to make that transition from high school friendships to college friendships.<p>I spent my freshman fall pretty much just going to class and straight back to my dorm. On the weekends I would go to the football game, but that was it. The rest of the time I watched TV or played on the Internet. It was probably the loneliest I&#x27;ve ever been in my life and, as Christmas came that year I was seriously questioning whether or not I wanted to continue at my university. I had moved two states and five hours away, just to sit around and be lonely.<p>I told myself going back from Christmas if Spring semester wasn&#x27;t any better I was going to transfer back home. Well, spring rolls around and one of the guys I&#x27;d sat next to in the intro to engineering class invited me to rush his fraternity.<p><i>Whut?</i> I had been pretty vehemently anti-Greek; I was a nerdy computer science guy who liked roleplaying games and science fiction movies - not really what I assumed &quot;frat&quot; material was. So my first inclination was to say no thank you.<p>But I then I stopped myself. &quot;What&#x27;s the worst that could happen?&quot; I asked myself. &quot;The worst that happens is I don&#x27;t like it, and I&#x27;ve wasted a few hours. No matter what, it beats sitting in my dorm room, in the dark, mindlessly surfing the web.&quot;<p>So I did it. And it turned out to be one of the best decisions I made.<p>I met so many amazing, awesome people it blew my mind. The guy that ended up being my big brother (for non-fraternity folks, think of a big brother as a mentor) could have been my twin separated at birth - we shared so many arcane interests (<i>including</i> roleplaying games and science fiction movies - we had a chapter D&amp;D campaign running by the end of the semester).<p>I was eventually initiated, and throughout the remainder of college, the fraternity was a big part of my social life. It was instrumental in breaking me out of my shell and grounded me in the university community. I ended up graduating, having never again considered transferring. And I learned so many valuable social and leadership skills thanks to being involved in the fraternity.<p>Fast forward 15 years, and the people I met in the fraternity are still some of my best and closest friends. I still do a couple of concerts a year with group of brothers, and have ever since we were in college together. My big brother was the best man in my wedding a few years back and I was the best man in his wedding last year. Several other brothers were groomsmen as well. Several brothers drove up for my daughter&#x27;s baptism a couple years, and we still go to gatherings once a year or so.<p>About eight years ago one of the brothers had his house burn down. We all pulled together and filled up a pickup truck worth of supplies to get them him and family through the tough time until insurance kicked in.<p>A group of four of us have a long running iMessage group that sees thousands of messages a year, especially involving our sports programs. When I&#x27;m watching football, I&#x27;m usually doing it with one window on the game and another on the chat window as we follow along. It&#x27;s like being with your friends at the pub.<p>And it goes without saying that brothers end up getting jobs from other brothers. I think I know people in every conceivable industry at this point thanks to having met them at university.<p>Pretty much every major event of my life since I pledged, fraternity brothers have been a part of. All because I took a risk on something I thought I might not like but decided to try anyway. I&#x27;m glad I was wrong.<p>So yes, those raucous parties and silly rituals do serve a purpose. We&#x27;re social creatures by nature and it&#x27;s a way of building up your social life, and blowing off the stress of school. Universities are institutions of learning, yes, but we&#x27;re not there <i>just</i> to learn 24&#x2F;7, just like I&#x27;m not at my job now 24&#x2F;7. These things are fun, and they build up your social network.