<p>I spent my freshman year at UTSA and it was good experience but it could have been better. It’s easy to kind of get comfortable with how easy things are and slack off, i.e. sometimes i wouldn’t write my papers until the day before they were due and still make the highest grade in the class. In retrospective, I realize that if I had put more time and effort into my work then I would have had an even higher GPA. (it was still high enough to get accepted into UT). Do your best to stay focused. Also, think about joining the Honors College, even though it’s past the official deadline they still allow people to apply(I applied around this time and got in). You get reserved housing in Laurel Village and it opens the door for so many opportunities that others can’t access at UTSA. For example, you will never have to worry about registration, because Honors College students get to register for their classes before everyone else at UTSA. Overall, being in the Honors College was really the best thing that happened to me at UTSA. So I’d say it’s worth a try. </p>
<p>Btw, living at Laurel Village was beneficial in every way except for the fact that you are required to purchase a meal plan every semester and the cheapest one is $978. I never used up all my meals and they don’t do “roll-overs”, so it was basically a total waste of money. The second semester I went to the cafe a total of 7 times(I had 143 meals left), because I had gotten sick of eating the food there all the time first semester. Also the social setting at Laurel is different than the one at Chisholm and Chaparral, it seemed like Chap and Chisholm always had something going on and people were more friendly. At Laurel they(the RA’s) tried to have little get togethers, but for some reason, no one really went to them. Upsides of Laurel were the size of the rooms, the relative newness of the dorm compared to the others and the fact that it literally took me about 4 1/2 minutes to get on campus(the UC II). I definitely think it’s a good idea to live on-campus as a freshman though , so wherever you end up I’m sure you’ll be fine.</p>