I love it, but it's not for everyone...

Introduction
First off, I'd say the biggest draw of UT is the price: it's a huge institution backed by tons of donors and you receive top-quality instruction, paticularly for the very low tuition you pay. Keep in mind, however, that UT is absolutely enormous, and this can be overhwelming to some people. Also, for out-of-staters, while Austin is a very liberal town for Texas (and pretty liberal on a national scale), there are still many Longhorns who may have views that seem strange or ignorant to you, and they are often quite vocal about them. Also, being so large, at times the UT bureaucracy can make you want to hit somebody: it's quite hard to make yourself heard or get soemething done sometimes. For me at least, the good outweigh the bad. Read on for more info:

Campus Life and Social Life
Depending on who you are, you could have the time of your life here. There's almost always some kind of party going on, usually dozens per weekend. Get a group of friends together and just roam around West Campus, and you're liable to come across something. Chances are you'll be welcomed to any house party you stumble across, especially if you've got your own beer.

Frats can be a double-edged sword: the smaller ones will often throw free parties, and you can meet a lot of people and girls at these, and drink a lot of beer for free. More prominent ones, like Sig Ep and Sig A tend to have parties you need to be on a guest list for, or be a hot girl to get into. Also, when these sort of frats have parties they tend to draw attention away from anything else going on that weekend, so you may spend that night looking for a party that never happens.

Don't forget sixth street: if you're over 21, this is a place where you can go and party your ass off and go home with somebody at the end of the night, all with relative ease. If you're not 21, be careful, Austin bouncers are some of the strictest in the country, and they can spot a fake ID a mile away.

While we're on the subject of alcohol, a personal word of warning: be very careful if you're under 21. Austin has a very low crime rate but a lot of police, which means they spend nearly all of their time writing parking tickets and busting underage college kids. I was having a beer on my porch with some friends, not even a party, not being loud or unruly at all, and we were mobbed by FIVE bicycle cops with flashlights, demanding to see our IDs. We had a bunch of over 21 people with us, and they managed to claim most of the alcohol as theirs, but a few people (like me) got caught redhanded with bottles in their hands. I got an MIP, had to pay a fine, take a class, and would have had community service if it weren't for a really cool guy at the courthouse who gave me the hours for no reason.

As for hooking up, let's face it: women at UT are beautiful, no joke. I did a little experiment when I was lying on the lawn between classes one day, and rated every girl that walked by on a scale of 1 to 10. In a period of five minutes, I had racked up 18 women that were an 8 or higher. Your head will be turning every day, I can guarantee you that much. Problem is, a lot of the most beautiful women are only interested in douchebag frat types, or athletes, or what have you, so if you are one of those guys, this is the place for you. If you're not however, hooking up can be a challenge. Just put your game face on and be bold, persistence, persistence, persistence.

For the girls: you'll have no trouble getting laid at all because there's tons of guys who have been getting rejected all night. It's not too late to be some drunk dude's last resort!

To sum up, if you get to know lots of people, you'll almost always have some place to be on Friday and Saturday night (maybe even Thursday too), so I'd say social life is one place UT is definitely not lacking. Advertisement
Academics
UT is a public university, but its academics are some of the best in the nation: Law and Film are two of the really stand-out programs, but I hear nothing but good things about nearly every department. I'm an English major, and the two English classes I'm taking this semester are really interesting, have great professors, and a small class size, so I have no complaints. My workload as an English major isnt' too bad, but something a bit more practical like pre-med, engineering, or whatever probably has a lot of homework. I read about two novels a week for my English major, and generally have about 20-70 pages of reading in other courses.

As for class sizes, a lot of people prefer smaller class sizes because they allow for teacher-to-student direct discussion, and feel more personal. I feel like I learn more in my 30-40 person classes than in my 200+ government class. The advantage of big classes though, is that they don't take attendance, and more often than not (as the case is with my government course) the only grades are the exams, so you could (if you were studious enough) never go to class, study the book, and make good grades on all the exams. I usually don't risk it and go to class, but it's always an option.

Student Body
The student body is overwhlemingly Texan, but you're going to run into all kinds of people: black, white, hispanic, asian, jewish, christian, muslim, indian, you name it. There's a good deal of foreign students here, so don't feel left out if you're not from the US.

You can find almost any type of person you could think of at UT: there's jocks, frat guys, artsy poet types, intellectuals, stoners, nerds, weird photographer chicks, party girls, whatever. There's a niche for just about everybody.

Like I said before, personal politics are all across the board: there's pickup driving frat guys who swear by Dubya and there's skinny girls with purple hair who tote backpacks covered in anti-US buttons. Everybody is here, you just have to look for them.

In Closing...
Like I said, UT's not for everybody, but it works for me. HOOK 'EM.