First UT impressions [#65]

I moved into my dorm at UT Austin on Friday, August 23. Since then, I've had the most jam-packed week, perhaps ever, in my whole life. Here are my first impressions of college life:

1. Food

The food is actually really solid. I know people typically insult college dining hall food, but I've been happy with it. In one of my recent journal entries, I wrote:

"I had some REALLY good breakfast just a few dozen minutes ago. I had eggs, which are normally bland, topped with shredded cheese and green salsa (which made them much tastier), a surprisingly soft biscuit, some oatmeal with an absurd amount of cinnamon and a sprinkling of raisins, and three sausage patties."

However, I am the type of person to eat the same breakfast for three weeks in a row¹. I'm not a picky eater by any means. So perhaps you should take my dining hall advice with a grain of salt.

2. Living in a Dorm

My "old" room is about the size of my "new" dorm room. Except I only really get half the room because I'm living with a roommate. I thought this would be suboptimal, but I only really use my dorm for sleeping and household chores like doing laundry. So I don't mind the reduced room.

I've also been pleased with the communal bathrooms. The cleaning staff cleans them daily² and I've never had to wait for a shower or a bathroom stall. I do have to wear shower shoes, though.

The laundry situation has been great too. I thought I'd have to trek down into the basement to do laundry once a week, but there's actually a laundry room right on my floor! No complaints there.

3. Classes & Homework

I quite like the college model of classes. This semester, I average 15 hours in class per week, which gives me so much more flexibility to determine the rest of my schedule.

This semester, I'm taking two math classes for my major and two general classes for my core curriculum requirement³. The homework is certainly harder, but is still manageable (at least for now).

I am a little scared about my math classes, where my three exams (two midterms and a final) each determine 25% of my final grade. I don't believe the exams are curved, which makes that even scarier. But we will cross that bridge when we come to it.

4. Making Friends

I have met many, many people in my first week here. In my experience:

• 70% are acquaintances
• 20% are somewhat friend material
• 10% are great friend material; people I really "click" with

I think college is most fun with a solid group of friends. So here's my unsolicited advice for anyone entering college:

Making friends is a numbers game. You'll only click with a small percentage of the people who you talk to. That's okay! It just means you have to talk to a lot of people. Join clubs. Go to social events. Ask random people to eat meals with you. Talk to people in your classes. Just talk to people as often as you can. Spend as little time in your dorm room as possible.⁴

One last story: six days ago, I set up a chessboard on UT's Speedway (where there's the most foot traffic). I used a nice table in the shade:

Over the course of 1h 30m, I met ten new people who spontaneously approached me to play chess. It was wonderful. I had so much fun and met many new people that I really "clicked" with. The lesson? Put yourself out there and you'll find your people.

Footnotes

¹ ~200g of plain Greek yogurt with ~60g of granola and ~120g of fresh blueberries. Very tasty & has ~20g protein!

² They don't get enough credit for it. Sure, the bathrooms are pretty drab, but that doesn't matter! What matters is that the bathrooms are clean.

³ M408D (Calc II), M325K (Discrete Math), HIS315L (US History since 1865), ARC308 (Architecture and Society). I'm taking 13 credit hours this semester.

⁴ I know the advice I just gave is the classic "put yourself out there and you'll make friends!" advice. But it is completely true.