By choosing the UW, a campus serving more than 40,000 students, you volunteer to become one person in a sea of faces.

This tendency to get lost creates a selling point for fraternities and sororities: by going Greek, the community you’re in becomes smaller, while the chance for personal interaction grows.

However, as much as we might think, this bonus isn’t unique to the Greek community. If you listen closely, the points start to cross over.

Most student organizations promise a niche on campus, academic help and advice. They also boast community involvement, the opportunity to make regional and national connections and the ability to meet a group of lifelong friends. Although these will make anyone’s stay at the UW more fulfilling, the Young Democrats, the Rugby team and even dorm life can provide these just like a fraternity or sorority. The group dynamic doesn’t disappear.

Even though lifelong friends are one of the greatest benefits of Greek life, and one that we often talk up, it’s not a unique benefit. But once that’s all said and done, there are three big things that make Greek life different from other student organizations.

The first is ritual and secrecy ­— in short, a group banding together to hold and protect secrets will be brought together, and it works. Many of the secrets relate to ideals of friendship, trust and loyalty that are important inside the fraternity and out.

The second piece is lifelong commitment. By taking the oaths and committing to fraternity values, you’re in for life. There’s no going back. Theta Delta Chi described it well when they said, “It is a lifetime commitment to an organization with decades of history and thousands of members with whom you will share a special bond.”

For those of you who haven’t had this opportunity, or those who have and haven’t really thought about it, that instant connection with other brothers or sisters is remarkable. It brings me to the third and final reason why I think we’re special — the idea of an alumni connection.

This connection stretches far past the idea that I’ll have better connections in the professional world once I leave the UW. Twenty, 30 or 50 years after I graduate, I’ll be able to come back to the same house and make the same connection with new fraternity members. As one of our alumni put it, we aren’t just members of the same fraternity ­— we’re brothers. The fraternity will always exist, and across generations. That’s powerful.

In the end, we’re not always as unique as we like to say or think. But we’re different enough that we continue to exist, and new members join by the hundreds every year. Like I’ve always said, you, me, members of the Greek community and otherwise are similar. Our escape from the sea of faces is just a little different.

[Reach columnist Nick Feldman at features@thedaily.washington.edu.]