<p>For senior members: </p>
<p>Tell incoming freshman things you wish you knew when you were a freshman!</p>
<p>That four years will fly by very quickly! Enjoy every minute. Work hard and play hard!</p>
<p>Ask for help sooner rather than later.</p>
<p>Go to as many games as you can. You may live many miles away when you’re older and not be able to go to them often if ever.</p>
<p>Get renter’s insurance. If you live in a dorm and something happens (such as pipes bursting over your room), it is YOUR problem. The dorm will not reimburse you. I learned this the hard way. Same thing applies in an apartment.</p>
<p>Be grateful for the incredible opportunity you have to go to UT. Since we’re OOS, it will be very hard for my kids to go there.</p>
<p>I’m not a senior, but here are some things I wish I had known.</p>
<p>You can get a locker at PCL after the first week. I study at PCL all the time anyway, so it was a great way to drop off books I wanted to have around for studying but didn’t want to carry around all day or to classes. </p>
<p>Cramster.com is your friend. I used it for a calculus class and it proved very valuable. Others I have known used it for various science classes. It can be well worth the $9 a month if you make the most of it. </p>
<p>The advisers are not infallible and you should always verify anything which is of vital importance. I’ve known people who have taken foreign languages when they didn’t have to due to the info given by advisers. One friend ended up having to stay an extra semester due to info from his adviser. My own adviser has tried to place me in classes which I don’t need for my degree in place of classes which I do need. Be sure the info you are given is correct. You are ultimately your own adviser (which kind of sucks). </p>
<p>When setting up your schedule for the first time on campus, be sure and check the map and see how far apart any classes taken back to back may be. This is especially true if you are in nursing, since that school is hell and gone from everything else. Also realize too that although you may technically have enough time to make it to your next class, you may not have time to get the kind of seating you want. You may need to sit in front due to the small writing of the professor or some other obstacle to deal with. This can be avoided if you check out the distances and rooms and professor reviews on pickaprof ahead of time. </p>
<p>If you enjoy basketball, definitely get the Longhorn All Sports Package. You get free admission to the games. Most people know this already. What most don’t know is that if you go to bunches of the early season games, both men’s and women’s games, you can get bumped up to the Ozone group, which allows earlier seating (which results in better seating). You can do this by paying extra, but I did it last fall for free just by going to a lot of games before conference play began. </p>
<p>That is all for now.</p>
<p>Fiyero, O-Zone is the entire student section. The section you are thinking of is the Stampede section. If you want to go to all the men’s games, it’s worth it to buy the Stampede pass early because instead of waiting out in the cold to get in, you can literally just walk in.</p>
<p>My advice from my first two semesters:
- GO TO CLASS! Very best advice I can give. It’s easy to get into a rhythym of skipping class, but if you go you will be much better off
- Do the reading. You will be more prepared for class and for the tests. It usually isn’t much, and it’s a lot more preferable to cramming for finals.
- Talk to your professors. Go to office hours, talk to them after class, get to know them. They’re usually nice people and they can really help you out.
- Don’t be afraid to ask for extensions on assignments. It never occured to me the first semester I could do this and I had some late papers. However, most professors are really accomodating, especially if you’re really busy, and you can get extra time.
- Don’t be afraid to Q-drop. If it isn’t looking like you are doing well in the calss, Q-drop it. It’s going to be a lot better than that class weighing down your GPA in the future. You have 6 drops over 4 years–don’t be afraid to use them.
- Don’t be afraid to meet new people. Talk to the kids you see on your floor. talk to the kid sitting next to you. Go to a club meeting or the event your RA is offering and you might meet your best friend.
- Take advantage of any free food you can. If you are living on-campus, your meal plan is not going to be enough food if you have a normal appetite. Get free meals whenever you can.</p>
<p>That all I have for now, but I will try to think of some more stuff.</p>
<p>theloneranger</p>
<p>My bad. Total brain cramp. You are correct on the Stampede. Yes it is worth it, but you can get it for free the way I described.</p>
<p>Great thread, guys. I’m going to copy it and email it to my son. A couple of questions. What is a Q drop?<br>
If you do drop and add something do you have to go to an adviser each time? What if you discover your adviser was incorrect and you don’t want to follow their advice? Is there a way to circumvent the adviser?</p>
<p>A Q-drop is when you drop after the first 12 class days. There is no penalty in the first 12 days, after that it still shows up on your transcript with a Q, but it doesn’t effect your GPA.</p>
<p>You don’t have to go through the advisors to drop or add, and they don’t have to approve your course selection. They give advice, but they aren’t the be-all, end-all, and they aren’t there when you register. However, the Plan II and LAH advisors are excellent at their jobs–they don’t know everything about other majors, however, so if you are a dual major you need to make sure you are on the ball about both majors.</p>
<p>I got the impression from the emails that my son received from FRI and Plan II that they would have to register him for their courses. Maybe it’s just that they have to sign off on something before he’s allowed to enroll.
For the Natural Science courses, will he be able to enroll in those without seeing an adviser about them first (so long as he has the prereqs)?</p>
<p>Plan II is different because you participate in a lottery for World Lit and your Tutorial Course, and you are only permitted to register for the course you get in the lottery.</p>
<p>I don’t know about FRI.</p>
<p>However, you register yourself at any computer once you’ve had your advising bars cleared by an advisor. They will recommend courses, but the final choice is up to you. If you don’t go see an advisor, you can’t register.</p>
<p>So after the 12 days, you get a Q on your transcript if you drop it and you can get up to 6 of those? what happens if you drop more than 6?</p>
<p>You cannot. They won’t approve you to drop after that–you have to get “dean’s permission,” which means you have to fill out a form to drop in the dean’s office and get the instructor’s signature. After the 6th drop, state law won’t let you Q-drop unless there are urgent non-academic reasons.</p>