The Ultimate Undergrad Experience

Introduction
I chose UT Austin because it has EVERYTHING. Literally! Almost every major imaginable, from Mandarin Chinese to Petroleum Engineering to Design to Finance. You can always find an awesome, one-of-a-kind class to fulfill those "required" hours - I took Ancient Egyptian History for a humanities requirement!

UT Austin is the sort of place where if you have the drive to do something, everything in the system is set up to help you along - if you can navigate the waters. If you're more of the type to sit around and wait for something to reach out and grab you, it's guaranteed that you will miss almost everything that UT has to offer. Even in the classes, the information and advice is ready and waiting but as a student, you must simply be willing to reach out and ask for it.

Campus Life and Social Life
Austin is definitely a party town. On any given weekend you can always find some fun downtown on 6th Street, or in a wild West Campus party. That said, there are still quiet corners to retreat into when you have to write that term paper or study for that big test.

The best part of Austin is the diversity of the student population. Whatever you're into, there's a group of people (and mostly likely a club) for it! From Scuba Diving to Paintball, from Indian Culture to Taiwanese American singers, from sororities to frats, it's impossible not to find someone else who loves the same thing you do. Academics
The University of Texas system has a rule where the top 10% of any graduating class in Texas is automatically accepted to their schools. This means that the majority of the student body at UT is filled with the brightest students the state has to offer, and what room is left is filled by one of the most competitive admissions out there.

The faculty reflects this. Although the required and introductory courses can be enormous and taught by TA's or disgruntled assistant professors, once you move past them and into your major, the classes are small, and the professors are all REALLY intelligent, REALLY motivated, and REALLY entertaining. The faculty is constantly winning national and international awards, publishing books, discovering breakthrough theories: it's an exciting academic community!

Student Body
The only thing I could equate the UT student body with would be a small New York City. Walking around campus, you can't help but hear at least five different languages spoken, see Middle Eastern, Asian, Hispanic, or African faces move past you, and see signs for at least three or four non-Christian religious groups. The origins are diverse, the interests are diverse, and the friendships are diverse. It's really amazing!

In Closing...
I absolutely love UT Austin because it's giving me the best undergrad experience I could have asked for. I'm constantly exposed to new ideas, new opinions, new experiences, new faces, and new cultures. Isn't that what college is all about? It's a time to explore the world and better understand it before you're launched out into it. Austin is a fantastic city for exploration, and UT is an awesome home base.