By Sydney Wilmer and Katie DePaola

This project was inspired by the idea that each person has a distinct story, and it is important to get to know each other in order to make this big world a bit smaller. It is also based on the notion that our differences are what make us unique. Only by facing our own misunderstandings can we begin to break down the walls we have created.

Read about Cresson below. But just reading about these individuals isn't enough to understand their struggles, passions and unique stories. To hear Cresson discuss labels in her own words, click here.

Sophomore Cresson Haugland was Nashville-bound last January a few days before she had planned.

"My mom said my plane ticket was bringing me back for rush and that I had to do it. So I did it. I really didn't have a choice," she said.

Haugland said she did not understand the purpose of a sorority when she came to Vanderbilt and initially did not consider participation in recruitment.

"I came in thinking that sorority girls at Vanderbilt were no different than any others," she said.

But as the semester progressed, Haugland made friends with older sorority women and questioned her ideas about Greek life.

"I got to know someone on a deeper, more personal and spiritual level," she said. And when Cresson found out she was in a sorority, the experience "really made me reconsider every stereotype I had about sororities."

Though she jokingly calls her mother "Miss Suzie Sorority," Haugland acknowledges she must thank her mom for opening the door and gathering recommendations while she was busy preparing for her college experience sans sorority life.

But initially, the 5-foot-10 dirty blonde, who sports a nose ring and does not own a single polo, wondered whether sorority life suited her.

"I stayed because I felt like I was put there for a reason, but I was still questioning it. Was this really where I was supposed to be?"

Even if she feels a little "different" sometimes, Haugland said she has not compromised her own values or offbeat sense of style in order to fit in. And as she has become more acquainted with the members of her own sorority, she has learned sorority life means more than fraternity parties and pearls.

"You can go to parties and be surrounded by hundreds of people that you don't know, and that's a party," she said. "You're together with people that have something in common with you that you might not have known about."

Nevertheless, Haugland admits she has not completely given up her original preconceptions of sorority women.

"I don't know why I still hold on to the stereotypes of the sorority girl. Maybe because I haven't really accepted the fact that I am one," she said.

But even as she finds herself delving deeper into sorority life, Haugland said she hopes others do not define her by these terms.

"I hope that I don't fit the image that maybe people see if they aren't in a sorority, because I don't know, I still kind of think the sorority girl wears the polos and, you know, the button up shirts and the little cutesy pearls. And that, in and of itself, is something that I've found fits."

She has really learned, however, more than anything else, Greek letters account for very little when it comes to understanding people on a deeper level.

"I've kind of gotten past that whole looking at what a person wears and judging them for it, because, you know, people look at me and think the stuff I wear is weird, and I'm like whatever, ǃÚI think what you wear is goofy.' So, I don't know."

At a certain point, she said she realized, "I should stop paying attention to all of these little letters."