One of our Chapter Consultants, Cam Clark (Cincinnati ’18), recaps his first semester visiting our chapters in the northeast.

I can split my favorite experiences on the road into two distinct categories: events and places. Events encompass anything the chapter planned or that sprung up during my visit from a brotherhood event to parents’ weekend. The events I enjoyed the most were the ones where I walked away knowing more about each of the guys and feeling more connected to their brotherhood overall.

One such event was a brotherhood escape room with Gamma Tetarton at RPI. On the first night of my visit, I was invited to join the brotherhood for an escape room night. Two days later, the brothers invited me to volunteer for the day at a local community block party where we helped set up, make food, and tear down at the end of the day. Being locked in a room for an hour, solving a gauntlet of puzzles, and serving the local community were not only fun experiences for myself, but allowed me to get to know the chapter.

During my visit to Lehigh and Stevens, parents weekend happened to fall while I was there. In both instances, I learned more about the chapter, not just through interaction with the brothers themselves, but also with their families. What surprised me most during these receptions was how excited everyone was to introduce me to their parents, the representative from IHQ who was only in town for three days. While talking to parents, I heard everything from how much their son loves the fraternity to stories about growth they have personally seen in their son since joining the brotherhood.

Being in the northeast and visiting 20 different chapters led me to some pretty incredible places throughout the fall semester as well. From one of the biggest cities in the world to the mountains of Pennsylvania and everywhere in between including 14 different states.

In between visiting the Phi Nu and Gamma Tetarton chapters, I crossed an item off my bucket list by visiting Cooperstown, NY I saw the Baseball Hall of Fame’s collection of memorabilia and hall of fame plaques for the first time. I also enjoyed fantastic views of Otsego Lake.

Just a week before my stop in Cooperstown, I had a few days of downtime during my trip to Upstate New York. Using AirBnB, I booked a sailboat hostel in the Finger Lakes Region and slept beneath the deck of a yacht on Cayuga Lake in Ithaca, NY. During my stay; I met a handful of other people staying on the boat from all different walks of life and with various reasons for visiting Ithaca for the weekend.

Hands down my favorite place to visit was New York City. I went into the city a few different times during my visits to the chapters within the region. It was a reasonable train ride, and I loved every minute I was there. The trips into the city were also a great opportunity to get to bond with the brothers that accompanied me and prevented me from getting myself lost.

Although being on the road bouncing between chapters every few days can be incredibly tiring, the experiences during my first semester visiting the Northeast Chapters has been one that I could not have gotten in any other position straight out of school. My first semester as a Chapter Consultant has gifted me some experiences that I will cherish throughout my life.

**Interested in becoming a Chapter Consultant? Apply HERE.**