The University of Texas - Austin

Let me first start off by saying that I have ALWAYS wanted to goto UT ever since I was young, but when I got here, that dream was kind of shattered.

My biggest complaint is this;
TEACHERS DO NOT CARE ABOUT UNDERGRADS!
This is why you sit in a classroom of 500+ people and either listen to a 1st year TA Master's student ramble about stuff they don't understand or watch a pre-recorded lecture of your professor on a video screen. Your professors could care less about you unless you are a grad student conducting research. With such a huge endowment you think UT could afford to make more classes, or have more teachers, but all they care about is Football and Research. If you are coming here for grad school it may be a different story, but make no mistake as an Undergrad you are nothing more than a number.

It is a shame because Austin is such a great city, but you are stuck with 50k other students whose main prerogative is to party and be pretentious. I made plenty of friends, is just a shame that so many people are either so close-minded or so awkwardly liberal and idealistic that it makes for a very strange campus culture.

I only have 1 year left and I kind of wish I had transferred to A&M or UHouston, hell even Texas Tech, I have friends at Tech and they are having lots of fun. A degree from UT looks great on your resume, but make no mistake its not that fun getting one. You will be nothing more than a number unless you are lucky enough to have a professor who will listen to his/her students.

Oh yeah, if you are obsessed with sports than come here, the Longhorns are great, if you care about academics also, then go to A&M or Tech, they have a good mix of everything, at the price of a little less prestige, and a little bit smaller of a city, although Lubbock is actually big like 250k, and College Station is really close to Houston. All in all, I would not recommend coming here for undergrad unless you are getting a great scholarship, if you have offers elsewhere you may want to consider them. I plan on going out of state for grad school, and I hope some of the schools I'm looking at aren't as much a machine as UT.

3rd Year Female -- Class 2011

Surrounding City: A+, Faculty Accessibility: F

Hate:
Football.
Way too big; impossible to get recommendations, make friends, get one-on-one attention from professors.

Bureaucracy; everything is paperwork, and sending you to the right desk.
No parking.
No campus dorms available for freshmen, possible not to live on campus your whole time there.
Must join greek life to make friends.
Lots of partying and alcohol.
Pervasive attitude of anti-intellectualism; making the grade, busywork, getting the standard job in accounting or whatever, is the focus of the entire student body and most professors.

Professors are incredibly condescending, make TAs teach everything, and only care about research. They do everything but come out and say that you're just paying their bills as an undergrad.

Really inadequate student mental health services.
Don't accept VISA for some bizarre reason, making paying them a huge pain.
Hard to get into any classes you want. REALLY hard.
Had really, really terrible roommates; drunks who never went to class, snobs, partiers.
Love:
The turtle pond.
The campus.
The funky downtown Austin vibe.
Some rare truly, truly excellent and brilliant professors with engaging teaching styles.
The shuttle system.

2nd Year Female -- Class 2010

Surrounding City: A+, Education Quality: F

If you want a big time football school, this one is for you. If you want an education - go elsewhere. They are cutting funding for professors. The class sizes are HUGE - already, They just doubled the head football coaches salary to 5 million, raised tuition, cut staff and faculty. Does the Alumni, faculty or students care? No. UT has one of the largest endowments in the world, yet, it always ranks mediocre in the rankings. The University priorities are all wrong. They don't spend it on the professors, most are TA's. the buildings resemble communist architecture. If you want to live in communist style housing - this place is it.I had scholarships to SMU and Rice - I made the wrong choice

1st Year Male -- Class 2009

Surrounding City: A+, Education Quality: F