Whether to join a fraternity or not is one of the biggest, life-defining decisions a new student can make. That’s why it’s very important you do not commit to a house until you have given it careful thought, by which I mean “consumed twelve Jell-O shots.”

Ha ha, that was a joke. Anyone in the Greek system will reassure you that alcohol is not served at fraternity recruitment events, although it will be hard to understand him, what with all the slurring.

Your first job is to decide if fraternity life is really for you. Do you enjoy morning regattas, afternoon serenades and evening snifters of brandy? Then you should definitely join a house, though I recommend you do so in 1915.

Modern fraternities are less in the regatta/serenade/brandy mold and more in the algae/fungus/mold mold. But that’s OK! Thousands and thousands of University of Illinois alumni have come through the Greek system here, and a large number of them are not currently incarcerated!

There are other benefits. For instance, you will have exchanges with sororities, where males and females will stand on opposite sides of a bar, with no interaction, as if it were a junior high dance. Of course, even if you are unable to attract a female, you still might “get lucky” in the sense that after you pass out, your frat brothers might not draw a picture on your forehead of how babies are made.

So you should definitely go through rush to determine which house is for you. While they all rush differently, there are common threads. For example, each fraternity elects a “house rush chair.” His qualification for this is that he wasn’t elected for “house social chair” but still needed to pad his resume. The rush chair’s job is to take you to his room during rush parties and tell you, in a completely serious tone to connote that he means business, that you have the most beautiful eyes he has ever seen.

No, wait, that is what he would tell a girl, if he were able to get one. What he tells you is that everyone in the house has informed him that you are a great person, a class act, one of the guys, the sort of person who would have no problem coming up with $9,000 in annual dues.

Then he tells you a little about what pledging will be like. Although all the other houses on campus haze, he tells you, his doesn’t. Remember what his face looks like when he tells you this. In a few months, when the brutal hazing is over and you are playing poker, it will be your clue that he is bluffing.

After the rush chair goes through his spiel, he will “bid” you, meaning he will give you an official invitation to join the incoming pledge class. Receiving a bid is a special moment, shared only by you and literally every single other person rushing the house. Rush chairs bid everything that shows up to a rush party, regardless of qualifications. Often this requires the house’s president to step in: “Uh, Zach, you bidded our fridge.”

“Well,” the beleaguered rush chair will reply, “I heard he was really helpful with the beer.”

You’ve been to rush parties; you’ve met the guys in the house; you’ve woken up in a bathroom stall; and finally, you’ve received your bid. Now, it’s time to decide whether to accept it.

One option is to ask for advice from friends who have decided not to rush. They will snidely tell you that joining a fraternity is the same thing as buying friends. This could not be further from the truth, however, as you will despise most of the guys in your house.

Or you can ask someone who went through the system what he thinks you should do. “I was never hazed,” such a person will say. “No, sir, not me.” He will be standing straight up when he says this, so as not to aggravate hazing-related paddle injuries on his backside.

He may also point out that most U.S. presidents, cabinet members, Fortune 500 executives, Canadians, etc., were Greek, and that the Unabomber was not. You will leave the conversation feeling that if you don’t go Greek, you will be some pathetic loner with a pitiable lifestyle for which people will mock you, such as college newspaper humor columnist.

But really, the decision is yours alone. Being in a house is going to take patience, social tenacity, street smarts, a high tolerance for alcohol and most importantly, a black magic marker. Because first chance you find, you’re getting your revenge.

Scott is a third-year law student and former member of a University of Illinois fraternity. He was never hazed.