<p>I just wanted to comment that my S is loving both Rice and Houston. O Week was awesome for him and in some ways challenged him on a personal level. He made bunches of friends and "everybody" knows his name. </p>
<p>He has found faculty, coaches, and students all easy to work with including being able to get into a class that the prof only allows one freshman in roughly every other year. </p>
<p>He's been out and about on campus at 1am and didn't for a moment feel concerned about his safety and mentioned that there is always a safe resource nearby.</p>
<p>My son was extremely disappointed with his college assignment, but has come to love it and the people! The video was sort of what began to open his eyes and change his mind.</p>
<p>So far he is really liking the food too.. he's pretty easy going though about food and pretty much likes everything!</p>
<p>S is having to revise his schedule a bit as the above mentioned prof highly suggested that he drop O Chem, so now he's looking for something to replace that. However he plans to attend O Chem tomorrow and talk to the prof and sit in on other "replacement" classes this week.</p>
<p>S is also enjoying the weather, believe it or not. I think this is mostly because he had himself so psyched out before he went that he hasn't found it to be all that bad. I did hear him say today though as he walked into a building "Ah, that feels good" :-).</p>
<p>I think S's only complaint so far has been that he spent too much money at Bed, Bath & Beyond :-).</p>
<p>Rice is a good thing!</p>
<p>(Oh, slight change of subject - is there student government for freshmen? If so, when are elections and/or what does it take to be involved?)</p>
<p>Hey, freshman here (: I would like to let everyone know that I too have been enjoying Rice and the surrounding area of Houston. </p>
<p>O-week was a wonderfully hectic week filled with tons of fun activities. The op’s son wasn’t exaggerating when he said everyone knows your name. It seemed like every time I turned around someone was greeting me by name and introducing themselves. </p>
<p>The advisors (or fellows for some colleges) were a little worried about the registration since it was a new system this year, but I was able to get into every single class I wanted and have a great schedule. </p>
<p>I’m from Texas, so I can’t really comment on the weather that much, but I will say it was pretty pleasant for Texas at this time of year. </p>
<p>The food is all very good, though slightly monotonous for a picky eater like me. </p>
<p>Overall, I am very happy at Rice so far and have had great experiences meeting the rest of the sophomores, juniors, and seniors as they moved in this past weekend. I hope this post helps some people who are worried about their kids at Rice or those who are on the fence about choosing Rice. </p>
<p>In response to the student government question, from what I’ve learned there are a few different types of student government. There’s the residential college government which typically meets one night a week, Student Association (or SA) which I believe is the government organization for all of Rice, Rice U-Court which is more of an organization for upholding the student code of conduct, and Honor Council which acts to uphold the university’s honor code. If he’s interested, I would tell him to ask one of his advisors or an upperclassmen and they should know who to point him to. I’m actually thinking of running for freshmen class rep for my residential college.</p>