Booth

Booth is a part of Carnival, a yearly tradition here at Carnegie Mellon. Organizations on campus build elaborate structures that showcase some of the school’s top artistry and engineering feats. It’s not limited to Greeks (the Taiwanese Student Association, Architecture students, amongst others consistently put out some great booths), but Greeks comprise a healthy portion. With support and funding from years of eager alumni, Greeks have easier access to the resources we need to make majestic towers, faux coliseums, and even miniature baseball parks. It’s hard to visualize how impressive the handiwork on these booths are, but the pictures below say a lot more than I can write.

See a slideshow of this year’s booths here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cibomahto/sets/72157623867448358/
(Courtesy MAKE Magazine)

Other booths throughout the years:

Greeks carry over the walls for their booths. (Photo credit: zpao, flickr)

Sigma Phi Epsilon's NES, Booth 2007

Alpha Epsilon Pi's Wall-E-Pi, Booth 2009 (Photo: zachholman, flickr)

Phi Kappa Theta's RoboRome, Booth 2010 (Photo: welshby, flickr)

Alpha Epsilon Pi's fully functional baseball scoreboard, Booth 2010 (Photo: sorakirei, flickr)

Greek Sing

In short, Greek Sing asks Greek organizations to present 13-minute mini-musicals and shows. Assuming you’ve made it past the word “musical” without vomiting on your keyboard, hear me out. I understand there’s a huge stigma against dudes acting and singing. But trust me – Greek Sing is nothing like the Beauty and the Beast musical your parents dragged you to, them screaming “this is a masterpiece, boy, a masterpiece!“. I’ll show you a clip of Greek Sing, and you might not be impressed. But as you watch this short clip, think about everything that goes into making these 90 seconds happen.

Phi Kappa Theta & Kappa Kappa Gamma (sorority) perform West Side Story, Greek Sing 2009.

Boy, that looks like a lot of work. But for many, Greek Sing is not only a way to take their minds off school work for once (sitting inside doing work all day sucks), but it’s a good way to mingle with other people and try something completely new. If variety is the spice of life, then Greek Sing is the king of all spices: singing, dancing, set building, music making, choreographing, lighting.. the list goes on. When else in your life (unless you already do this stuff) would you make two-story sets for a musical? That’s live music in that clip too; everything in these shows is organized by the students that perform in them. Yeah, I won’t lie, it’s a lot of work. But it feels damn good when you’re on that stage soaking in all that applause.

Not all of them are serious either; some houses just like to make people laugh, and put on comedy shows. Pi Delta Psi performed Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, Beta Theta Pi did an interpretation of The Bachelor & Jersey Shore, and Sigma Alpha Epsilon wrote Titanic on Ice, a musical about Al Gore’s war on icebergs (long story).

The show is also one of Carnegie Mellon’s greatest student philanthropic efforts. 100% of the proceeds from ticket sales go directly to organizations in need. For 2010, a record-shattering $42,700 was donated to St. Jude Chidren’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. The donation goes towards the search for a cure for cancer.

Greek Sing – just one of the many things Greeks do. More to come!

Greek Sing Shows 2010

• Pi Delta Psi – Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog
• Beta Theta Pi – Original Show, Jersey Shore & The Bachelor
• Sigma Tau Gamma – The Nightman Cometh
• Sigma Alpha Epsilon – Titanic.. On Ice! (First Place Singles)
• Alpha Chi Omega* & Alpha Epsilon Pi – Wicked
• Kappa Alpha Theta* & Pi Kappa Alpha – Mamma Mia! (First Place Doubles)
• Kappa Kappa Gamma* & Sigma Phi Epsilon – Fame!
• Delta Delta Delta* & Delta Tau Delta – Hairspray
• Delta Gamma* & Phi Kappa Theta – Cry-Baby
  * those are sororities

Carnegie Mellon Fraternity Recruitment

If you’re looking for the scholarship, click here.

Greek Life is always in a bit of an awkward situation. People who aren’t a part of it can’t understand it, and those who think they know it bring up Animal House, American Pie, or any number of other fantasy fraternity worlds conjured by Hollywood. Trying to convince people otherwise usually seems to be fruitless.

Regardless, that’s what this website – the official website of the Carnegie Mellon Fraternity Recruitment process – is for. Throughout the summer, there will be new posts describing the different aspects of Greek Life here in Pittsburgh. Posts will cover everything from Greek Sing, the largest philanthropy event on campus, to Booth, an amazingly creative school tradition, to our hard stance on hazing (zero tolerance). The goal here is to give you a real perspective on the ways Greek Life enriches lives, and contributes to the campus community.

As for me, my name’s Harold Kim – I serve as the Vice President of Recruitment for the Interfraternity Council, which governs the eleven fraternities on campus. I’ll be a junior in the Information Systems program this upcoming fall, as well as a Resident Assistant for the new Residence on Fifth community. Feel free to email me with any questions you might have – campus life, Greek life, school work, I’m open to anything.

Sometimes, the best offense against rumors is providing the honest facts. I guarantee there’s more to Greek Life than you think you know, and hopefully reading this website over the next few weeks will give you a more informed view of what being Greek at Carnegie Mellon really means.