Questions About UT. Son Starting in the Fall

I found out at UH that conservative professors can be a real trip. You can learn from anyone, in fact, I think it helped make me be more open minded and its very interesting to learn how the opposite mind works from you. And if you don't buy that, just think of it as spying on the enemy

 

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1) Admitted to something called Liberal Arts Honors (Plan I). Has anybody heard any pros or cons? How about the Honors Dorms?

Didn't know too many Liberal Arts majors. My friend was in the Honors Plan when we got there and he just graduate and is going to Baylor med. As for dorms...of course stay away from Jester. It's a nice meeting ground and to get to know more people. If you're the cool dad you think you are, spend some money and move him into Dobie .
But in all honesty, I think the dorms behind Jester are much much nicer (near Belmont). The name slips my mind.


2) Need a good list of politically liberal professors so he can maintain the good values he has been exposed to at home.

www.pickaprof.com. It's your best friend when your real friends fail to give you any real helpful opinions


3) Getting him a laptop for graduation. Anyone know about the off brand Averatec? Lot of computer for the money.
4) Does UT have some sort of Longhorn special computer that we should wait to buy there in the Fall?

Averatec is a good bang for your buck computer. What I suggest is getting him a small computer for easier toting (like some of the Averatec models). I transferred from UT to UH and even though UH's campus is smaller, lugging around a 6-7 lb laptop is murder. If you REALLY want to feel like an Austinite, look at the Dell 700m. He'll fit in there since it seems everywhere there's a Dell user.


5) Other tips for success at big bad UT?

Party hard and study hard. That's my friend's motto and I think he finished this year with a double major in business finance (or some other doohickey) and something else. Graduated with like a 3.7 GPA. That's the words to live by. I, for one, party harder than I did study and that will come up and bite him in the rear. And the general tips like just remember that even if you were a big fish at your high school, there's 20,000 other big fish awaiting your arrival. There are other words of wisdom I'm sure you can pass along. But just tell him to enjoy UT and Austin as much as he can because he won't regret going there.

 

1) Don't know about.
2) If he avoids engineering, science, and math, he should be fine.
3) Don't know about.
4) UT doesn't have a special computer that I know about. Making sure you can hook it up to an ethernet port and WIFI is a must.
5) Study Groups are very helpful. Learn to play racketball. 6th Street is about 15 blocks south of campus. Buy books at UT COOP if you don't get them online. Football tickets are a must socially even if you don't like football.

 

1) Plan II is the liberal arts honors program and is one of the most respected programs at The University. Being a business student myself, I don't know much about the classes in Plan II. Prather Dorms, aka the "honors dorms" are, from what I've heard, really quiet compared to Jester.

2) As for liberal professors, you can't really go wrong at UT. Almost all of the professors are liberal, living in Austin and all.

3) I would highly suggest a laptop for your son. I bought a desktop before I went to UT, but know I really wish I had gotten a laptop instead. Most of campus, including lecture halls and the library, have free wireless internet which is cool. As for Averatec computers, I'm not familiar with the brand.

4) I know the business school offered Dell laptops to students at "discount" prices, but I would not recommend buying one of these overprcied laptops. You can find a much better value online or at MicroCenter.

5) Tell you son to defintely check out www.pickaprof.com before registering for classes. Basically it's a website that let's you look up any course at UT and see a list of all the professors that teach the course, and what percentage of A's, B's, etc. they give out. It also has reviews of each professor written by past students, which is also really helpful. Definitely worth the $5.

 

You're think of San Jacinto Dorms. I lived there freshmen year. It's the newest dorm, but it's really hard to get. I remember applying for it at the beginning of my senior year of high school.

Oh, and Dobie sucks. Sure the building looks nice from the outside, but I'd never want to live there. It's way too overpriced as well.

 

The best advice I can give is go to class and pay attention. I know those early classes suck, but he'll get way more out of his classes and have less studying to do if he goes to class and pays attention.

Definately a do as I say, not as I do situation.

 

As someone who lived there two years, Dobie definetly doesn't suck . I don't think it's quite worth the money anymore, especially when the cafeteria went down so greatly in quality the last year, but I had a blast there. Met lots of great people and you can't beat the convenience. No funny smells like Jester... And also you have much more freedom, no crazy ass room inspections or anything... it may concern you as a parent I suppose, but it was nice to be able to freely drink there without worry really, and we even managed to toke up a few times with no problem (of course you've given him that good liberal upbringing to maybe that doesn't concern you ) ...

And I think UT does have a deal for Dell laptops, not sure how much of a deal it is or not as I already had a laptop...

Definetly invest in a pickaprof account or atleast have a friend with one...

And enjoy! Definetly get a LASP and football season tickets, games're a freakin' blast!

 

I highly recommend your son look into a Freshman Seminar writing class. These classes are small, taught by the best professors, offered only to first semester freshmen, and you get lower division writing credit. He will learn about it at orientation.

Note, the introductory course for LAH may substitute for lower division writing credit so a Freshman Seminar would be useless. I have not heard any pros or cons about LAH.

 

Oh and yeah that definetly helps, I didn't pay attention in class near as much as I had used to last semester and I saw the affects, got my first C in my time as a EE at UT... hurts the pride a lil' bit...

 

Try Rate My Prof as well.

 

1a.) I have a few friends in LAH. They like it. Access to many of the classes Plan II kids get.

1b.) Honors Dorms...I chose to live in off campus dorms in West Campus my freshman year. Personally, I wasn't a fan of the "Honors Dorms" mentality some seemed to exhibit, though there are a lot of interesting people to meet there as well. From my perspective, people who live in Honors Dorms view it as sort of "residential college" type experience, which is fine if that's what you want.San Jac is certainly nicer. Jester West is better than Jester as well if it comes down to that. I would certainly live in Honors Dorms over Jester. Blanton is the most popular from what I've seen/heard/know.

2.) www.pickaprof.com. Complete with grade breakdowns and general reviews of professors. Just about everyone uses it- it's helpful to stay away from classes that one doesn't particularly take interest in, but needs credit for. If a professor strongly sways one way or the other, the reviews will usually say so. There are plenty of faculty profiles available on the UT website.

3.) See 4

4.) www.campuscomputer.com. McCombs has a special deal but only for business students. That website is for all UT students- discounts on just about any electronics you can think of. I bought my iPod through it- about $30 cheaper, iirc. It used to be 10% off computers through there, haven't checked recently.

5.) Have fun, take interesting professors,. Enjoy Austin. Do well on midterms and such so finals don't become such a big deal.

 

1) Plan II is writing intensive. I'm talking about 30-50 page papers freshman year. My friend got in and she said that you write alot every semester. You also have to choose a major and they recomend you do a study abroad.

2) Most of the Political science prof. a great. I especialy recommend Madrid, Dietz, and Burnett. They specialize in Latin America.

3) I had an ibook and it worked really well for me. Plus u can get him an ipod.

4) The UT comp store offeres really good deals to students on programs and I think computers. I mean I got MS Word for 5 bucks.

5) West CAmpus parties rock. Cane and Ables on tuesdays. and $2 well drinks at Coppertank on thursdays.

HOOKEM HORNS!!! 2005 BCS CHAMPIONS

 

For the liberal prof's, I'd recommend going to the Young Conservatives of Texas "Watch List." You can download the list at the bottom of the page. I remember the first time they came out with it, they only included one professor that was conservative. Didnt care enough to look through this one, but im sure it hasnt changed.

http://yct-ut.org/index.php?id=events_watchlist


For the laptop, make sure its easy to take around and has an internal wireless card. Itll help alot.

 

Apparently you don't know glynch!

Just have your son take everything taught by a professor named Jenkins...

 

I must have missed something

 

www.pickaprof.com is a professor's worst enemy!!! j/k

Actually, I have nothing against the website. It's a good resource for students to find professors in line with a student's personal goals and interests.

 

Do you mean Jensen?

 

pick-a-prof costs money. www.utlife.com doesn't. i used to go to pick-a-prof and then we just used a friend's account for a while but now i use utlife and it seems to have everything pick-a-prof did but it's free.

of course, maybe there are more reviews on pick-a-prof if more people use it but all i was ever concerned with was the grade distribution. since i passed out of english, history, and economics with AP classes and never took anything like philosophy, i didn't worry about political leanings. all i ever had was math, engineering, science, and business stuff and i can't remember a political comment in my entire time there. you come, they teach you the boring stuff, you go home. there were a few civil engineering jokes thrown in, but that's different.


and i lived in jester for a year and dobie for a year and definitely liked jester more. the cafeteria is better and dobie is just too expensive. plus, jester has (or had, it was 4 years ago, i don't know what they have now) a T1 connection and that was the fastest internet ever. that could make your son come home less often, though, if that's a problem .

 

LOL! I've had 2 of the 13 professors on that list!