<p>Hi,
Son just got accepted to UT at Austin (computer science major). We are 1200 miles away from the campus (east coast) so don’t know a whole lot about it. A few people have said it is a ‘big party school’ which is not necessary the environment we’d like for son (at least 24/7). Then again, the comp sci program is very highly ranked. </p>
<p>If anyone had thoughts about the school culture, that would be much appreciated!</p>
<p>It’s going to be what your son wants it to be. If he decides he wants to party all the time, there will be plenty of things that will allow for that to happen, if he decides against it, then he won’t. Nobody forces you to do anything here, but its kind out of your hands regardless of what school he decides to go to. Even my CMU friend parties, and he is in the best program in the nation for CS.</p>
<p>Post #2 hit the nail on the head in writing that Texas is going to be what your son wants it to be as there are (and will continue to be) opportunities for excessive socializing or excessive academics or anything in between.
P.S. What are the top computer science programs? I have heard about Stanford, CMU, Texas & MIT. Berkeley, CalTech, Harvey Mudd ?</p>
<p>UIUC is up there along with Michigan I believe. Considering he is going to UT, it is located in Austin which has been coined as “Silicon Hills.” From what I’ve read, there are hundreds of high tech companies located in Austin. I believe Google is one of the most recent high tech company to build a location there. </p>
<p>As far as partying goes, I agree with foxshox, college is DEFINITELY what you make of it. As I always say, every school is a party at heart. Furthermore, I would take your son on a weekend campus visit to UT-Austin and see if it’s good for him along with yourself.</p>
<p>Thanks for those responses! Appreciate it! Great to hear about the high tech companies located in Austin. That was something we didn’t know. Living in the northeast, that whole area is pretty much unknown to us, in many respects.</p>
<p>Here’s a list of the US News rankings of grad comp sci programs. There is no listing for undergraduate comp sci programs, but the undergraduate programs corrolate w/the grad programs. </p>
<p>[Search</a> - Computer Science - Best Graduate Schools - Education - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/grad/com/search]Search”>http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/grad/com/search)</p>
<p>Hi Jolynne!</p>
<p>If he is in an honors program, the honors dorms are very nice for freshmen. Kids get to know each other. It is relatively quiet most of the time. If you want to go to frat parties every night you probably can, but most people don’t. Most people do go out and have a good time on the weekend, especially home football weekends, but there are plenty of kids who don’t drink to excess.</p>
<p>If he is not in an honors program, I think that he can be in one of the residential FIGs that live in Whitis, and I think the situation there is the same.</p>
<p>Jester is a bit loud and it is the largest dorm. If you or he want him to have fairly quiet housing, he should apply for housing now if he has not already done so Jester isn’t the only dorm left with space for him.</p>
<p>p.s. The Out of State Student Assn kids are nice.</p>
<p>College is what you make of it. If your son is the partying type, I don’t think going to a different college is going to keep him away for it. I know some pretty heavy drinkers at MIT and Harvard is famous for the partying. </p>
<p>Austin is great college town, one of the best (ranked to be the best several times). I’ve lived in Madison (U of Wisconsin) and Ann Arbor (U of Michigan) and Austin still holds the crown for me. It offers a lot of cultural events. It has a great athletics program. Trust me, college football/sports trash-talking is always popular the the workplace after college. Texas is ultra elite in all of the major sports (football, basketball, baseball, swimming). The academic curriculum is as good as any top tier public university. Most of the programs are highly ranked (Business, Engineering, Computer Science, etc.), which makes it easier to change your mind about majors. The TEXAS brand is very strong internationally. It has a very temperate climate, so you can enjoy the outdoors all year around. It is in a great location for technical majors because of the technology firms around Austin. It’s one of the only liberal schools in Texas (Rice would be another). You’ll be sure to find more anti-bush signs here than anywhere else in Texas. And Austin is the perfect place to do so with it’s diverse and eclectic population. I personally believe college is not only about the academics, but also about finding yourself. It’s about transforming from a naive boy to a sophisticated citizen. UT definitely has all the ingredients that will aid the transformation. I would strongly recommend you to visit Austin and find out for yourself. </p>
<p>Here’s my impression of the dorms:
Jester - loud and dark, not conducive to study. almost every lives there. some people love it because it’s very social. But I like my quiet study space with comfy couches, oak tables, and a fireplace. Although one of my favorite study area in in the 1st and 2nd (East side?) study lounge, which as comfy couches, large glass sliding doors and a balcony style arrangement (2nd floor is the balcony). The halls are a bit poorly lit for my taste.
San Jacinto - new and quiet. The main study areas are well lit and the lobby study areas are conducive to coffee and studying. It’s more expensive and tend to attract the higher maintenance and more snobbish kids.
Duren - too new for me to know, but I would expect to be similar to San Jacinto
Simkins - probably the worst dorm as far as locations goes.
Moore-Hill - good location and before it was co-ed it had great community, I don’t know about after the integration. It may be louder now that the outdoor pool (which is really amazing, UT put millions into those pools) is right back Moore-Hill.
Whitis Court - a quiet all freshman dorm.
Littlefield - conservative all girls dorm, but great close-knit community. My favorite as far as architecture and building lay out. It has a cool library with books from the 40s. It’s the safest dorm for girls. Most dorms you can tailgate in, Littlefield girls will kick you out even if you are studying in their library. They are part of the honors quad, but residents are not in honors nor do they interact with the honors kids.
Prathers, Brackenridge, Roberts - good location, VERY QUIET to the point of being anti-social. Brackenridge has the biggest rooms of all the dorms. Rooms are organized into 4-6 per section, so it’s hard to social.
Andrews, Blanton, Carothers (honors dorm) - near and dear to my heart, it’s semi-quiet (Blanton is the loudest, Carothers is the quietest; Blanton has the smallest rooms, Carothers has the biggest rooms). It has GREAT community, partly because the honors students take many of the same entry level honors classes, which is MUCH smaller than the regular classes (I only had 20ish people in my freshman Calculus class versus 300-500 students). It has a very interesting collection of people from the nerdy engineering and CS majors to the hippie tree-hugging Plan II majors to the fratty Business Honors kids. It has an ivy league feel to the place. My friends who visit me always say that it’s nothing like the rest of the campus.</p>
<p>Oh, for the honors dorms, you son can try to apply even if he is not in honors. The dorms go through 2 year cycles. One year it would be packed and they’ll have a lottery for non-freshmen; the next year, they’ll accept some non-honors students. That’s because students usually stay two years before moving off campus.</p>
<p>“It is in a great location for technical majors because of the technology firms around Austin.”</p>
<p>The above statement is very true. I explain, Silicon Valley did not happen because they liked the bay view in Cali. Stanford on one side and Berkeley on the other was the driving force. UT-Austin has created it’s own silicon valley mainly due to the face that UT-Austin is an outstanding research university. Oh and according to ARWU engineering rankings, the Cockrell School of Engineering was ranked 6th in the world and it has the 4th most members in the National Academy of Engineering.</p>
<p>While our engineering program is very good, you have to take the ratings with a grain of salt I think because they are mostly based on graduate programs. A graduate engineering program doesn’t necessarily translate to an equivalent undergrad, and while both programs are very good, I think our graduate program is better than our undergrad.</p>
<p>^^^Really? Because the rankings for both undergrad and graduate tend to look different based on US News. I do believe that the Cockrell School of Engineering is one of the elite best in the world both undergrad and graduate.</p>
<p>foxshox make another post so your number of posts doesn’t stay at 666 :o lol</p>
<p>I thought the same thing CollegeDK!</p>