<p>Holy freaking crap, Nxt. I thought you’d posted enough already. Lol. You’re lucky I have nothing better to do.</p>
<p>My first advice: Don’t worry too much. It’s nice to have things work out smoothly, but all the information you REALLY need to know will find its way to you easily enough. Everything will be just fine.</p>
<p>OK, onto the questions:
-I haven’t noticed a big difference in the percentage of Asian students from one dorm to another, but then again, I probably wouldn’t notice even if there was a difference. College is about diversifying. You’ll have plenty of opportunity to get to know new people as well as find people very much like yourself.
-It should not be difficult to find a federal work study position on-campus. For jobs on and off campus, you can go to hirealonghorn.com. They might have mostly summer stuff up now, but keep checking until fall postings start popping up. You DO want to get started early if you need a job while you’re here. At the very least, you could work as a part-time food prep or cashier for the Division of Housing and Food Services. They usually have positions open. They pay $8/hour. For off-campus jobs, it’s hard to say. I’m looking for one now, but it’s harder to find one in the summer. Start looking early if you can.
-Yes, there definitely IS possibility that more time slots will open up after you register at orientation. Earlier orientations are truly better off. There’s no getting around that. This gives you the greatest opportunity to check back every week after your orientation. I’d suggest checking each Monday at whatever time it is that transfer student registration opens on Monday as well as at 9:00 AM on Fridays, when Freshman Orientation Registration opens. And we’re talking a matter of minutes here before classes start closing. Now, HenryJ223 is not entirely accurate in his statement regarding the lack of new class sections opening up. This does occasionally happen. I was lucky enough one year to have 3 brand new times with a new teacher pop up out of nowhere for a Calculus course I needed. I guess maybe they do this when the University sees a serious need to add new class times in order to provide students with what they need. Or maybe a professor or lecturer whimsically decided that he/she wanted to do some extra teaching. I have no idea. All I know is that it happens. Also, as you’ve probably heard, the best time to check back on classes is after registration fees are due. And you never know what’s going to happen during the four days before and after classes start. Check back daily if not more often on these days if you still want to change your schedule (even if classes have already begun, it’s OK!!!).
-The Business A students, I have known worked their butts off, but a lot of that was due to organizations they were involved in, which is not to say don’t get involved with organizations. Do!! Somehow or another, it wards off depression. Just trust me on this one. But the time commitment required for As really depends on the person. I knew people who took 17 hours a semester and didn’t really commit to their studies much, but still got all As. I wish I was a genius like them. Just do what you have to do to understand the material.
-I didn’t even know you could opt out of the meal plan. DEFINITELY do it. It is both cheaper AND more convenient, like WAY WAY WAY more convenient. And the food is way better than any other University I’ve visited. I mean, it gets old after a while, but all you have to do is walk there at the appropriate time and you get very decent food made for you! No need to cook. And at Kinsolving or J2, it’s all you can eat. And if you’re unable to eat during their very limited hours, all you have to do is go to Jester City Limits, which has great hours. Just don’t eat there every day. You’ll regret it when your Meal Plan starts to run dry.
-No need for a desktop. I knew a couple kids with them, but it’s rare. As for your 2 Gs of RAM, who cares how much RAM you have as long as it’s enough to run your programs? You might want to get an external hard drive to store all your music and videos on if you have a small hard drive. But I never got one because I don’t download movies, just music. And I can always dump that on DVDs if I need to. It’s cheaper.
-What you can do with your financial aid depends on what kind of financial aid your getting and who your getting it from, etc. You will have your own financial aid adviser to help you with that stuff. Make sure you find out about the Financial Aid office at Orientation so you will know where to go and who to see and when to see them. Don’t ever let a deadline pass for financial aid stuff. That can be scary.
-Hmmm, things in a dorm room: small closets, beds (bunkable in some dorms, which is useful, but you can’t do that in Jester. Also, the mattresses are rock hard. If you can’t stand them, get a foam mattress cover at Wal-Mart or something), microwave, fridge, chair, desk, shelving unit, dresser drawers, sink (usually), towel rack (if you have a sink), bulletin board, ethernet jack, cable jack (with free cable and a UT movie channel that my friend runs actually, which is fun when there’s a movie I particularly want to watch), two trash bins, and of course power outlets. Most dorms have one or more kitchen somewhere in the building that you can use whenever you want to, since they are rarely used. There are also laundry rooms in every building, often on every floor, but not always. There are study lounges, TV lounges, pool lounges, etc. It’s really quite nice. Gregory Gym and the Rec Sports Center are where you go work out though. Thus, gyms are not actually in the building, but they’re close enough.
-I had no car my first two years here and I loved it. You won’t do much grocery shopping since your meal plan covers most things and you get free access to all Capital Metro buses, which go just about anywhere you want to go. If you work far away, I suppose you might want it. That depends on your job. There are many different types of parking permits you can get. A Resident permit would be the most convenient. This would get you into a parking garage nearby. However, a “C” permit would be the cheapest. There are a limited number of lots you can use with this permit for long-term parking (it’s not what they’re designed for) and they will be across I-35, certainly not nearby, but less than a half-hour walk.
-Haha, bike locks. You will not only NEED a bike lock. You will need both a cable and a U-lock. And you will need both tires and the frame to be locked to the bike rack or to another part of the bike that is locked to the rack. The best defense from bike theft, however, is having a bike that looks cheaper or more difficult to steal than the one next to it.
-Well, it really depends on your roommate, naturally. During my time in the dorms, I spent very little time in my actual room. I did all my studying in study lounges around the building or sometimes in other buildings for a change of pace. There is no short supply of places to study. Heck, I didn’t even necessarily sleep in my room. I’d often find myself studying until I fell asleep on a couch in whatever study area I happened to be in, then I’d wake up a few hours later, the next morning. Also, both me and my roommates both years never cared what the other was doing in the room because anytime we were sleeping, we were usually tired enough to be able to sleep through whatever the other was doing (even Guitar Hero). Most of my friends here at UT slept only when they were so tired that they absolutely could not stay conscious any longer. So, I consider that normal for college, but who knows, maybe we were just a bunch of wackos.
-The library policy has actually changed a few times over the past few years. Last I looked into it, they were not open 24 hours a day except during and right before finals. I think they were open until 4AM. Here’s the link to the page that posts the hours for the PCL, but at the moment it only lists Summer hours, which is useless to you:
[Library</a> Hours - Perry-Castañeda Library](<a href=“http://www.lib.utexas.edu/about/hours/byunit.php?loc=pcl]Library”>http://www.lib.utexas.edu/about/hours/byunit.php?loc=pcl)
However, this is not the only place you can go to study. The Flawn Academic Center is another great place that is open really late. And McCombs Business School basically never closes. They’re really good about that and they have computer labs and study lounges, whatever you need (it’s also really fun to play on the escalators at 4 in the morning if you need a study break. lol.).
-So you want to know something I regret. Well, I’m going to be honest with you even though somebody is sure to get mad because I really shouldn’t be saying this. I had a prescription for amphetamine-like study aide drugs. All I have to say is I didn’t take advantage of that nearly enough. If you can get them, use them. If I could go back, I’d do drugs. LOL. I think not taking drugs caused me some problems. This is of course if you are unable to get good grades without them. If you are already doing well, then for Christ’s sake, stay away. But if you feel like you can’t cut it, they DO work. I was lazy and didn’t take them a whole lot: only on test days usually. And just for the record, I’m not talking about abusing these drugs. I’m talking about using them as directed. I.E. in the dosages suggested or less.
-I’d have to say avoid dorms that don’t have sinks. I like having a sink in the room. It seems a lot more convenient than not having one. Also, if you don’t like the smell of Jester, don’t stay there. Go check it out during orientation. Take a good whiff. See what you think. And I don’t mean Jester Center. You have to go into an actual residence hallway if you can. I think it smells different from other dorms, and not in a good way. But not everybody thinks so.</p>
<p>OK, I guess I’m finally done. I hope I don’t get in trouble for that drug comment. I’ll delete it if it pushes anyone’s buttons. I’m not here to **** anybody off, just to be as honest and accurate about my experiences at UT as possible.</p>