Category Archives: Student Life

extracurricular activites, UT sports and other campus events, student organizations, recreation, etc.

Riny, Student Life

Yummy Sandwiches!

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Ok, first things first –  I have been extremely lazy about blogging this semester, for which I apologize!

Anyway, I have been trying to stay a little healthy this semester, going to the gym in the morning and also eating better. The latter is pretty hard for two reasons: First, I love to eat out a lot, and there aren’t a lot of healthy options in that category. Second, cooking is time consuming, and sometimes, I need meals to be convenient. The convenient, economical, healthy meals I have come up with so far are: whole grain cereal in the mornings, yummy odwalla granola bars for a pick-me-up between classes, and yogurt with granola from Prufrocks. And of course, the leftovers of my son’s meals! 

But then the other day, I found a place that has now become my single most convenient, favorite lunch pick-up places ever. It’s on the drag – the NW side of Martin Luther King and Guadalupe, called “Bite Mi”, next to the Vietnamese cafes in the area. Great tasting sandwiches, for a great price ($3.50 for almost a footlong). Plus, they are healthy – they have vegetables and no mayo/dressings. If those are not enough reasons to try one, here is another: the place is run by an entreprenial alum, who built it up from scratch by himself.  I would definitely recommend the Pork Special sandwich, for $3.75. So try one if you get the chance!

Jonathan, Student Life

Life without a bike

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bicyclesTwo key decisions that affect my day-to-day life, decisions about housing and transportation, were made last spring. Before arriving in Austin, my wife and I decided to leave our car with her in Pittsburgh as she finished up school. Knowing that I would be reliant on public transportation, I figured that I wanted to live close to campus. At the time, I had absolutely no concept of Austin’s neighborhoods or geography. So, at the suggestion of an acquaintance, I decided to settle in Hyde Park, a neighborhood just north of campus–two miles from the business school. Naively, I figured that I could walk to campus every day. My first commute to campus, a steamy forty-five minute treck in direct sunlight, taught me what a silly idea that was. While a two-mile walk in the northeast is a quick and easy trek, when you factor in the summer heat and having to navigate a dozen stop-and-go intersections, the same trip in Texas can be torture. The bus quickly became my sole option for transportation.

On weekdays, the bus–Capital Metro and UT shuttle–work really well. The buses along my routes (1M/1L with Capital Metro and the IF bus with UT shuttle) tend to run 8-12 minutes apart during the daytime, and they run pretty regularly. (By the way, UT students can ride all of the local buses for free with a valid student ID.) However, taking the bus at nighttime can be trouble. One night last summer, I emerged from the PCL library around 11 p.m. and ended up waiting an agonizing half hour for the bus to come. On weekends too–if you miss a bus, you can get stuck with a 20 to 30 minute wait. (Quick Tip:  You can check bus and shuttle schedules online at the Capital Metro website.  Outside of rush hour the stop times are usually spot-on. During rush hour, they can be way off).

After a summer of reliance on the bus schedule, my dad was nice enough to give me his old road bike to use for the fall semster. It made a world of difference. If you live within three miles of school, the bicycle commute is the best way to get here. There are lots of small neighborhood roads that snake around campus, which means that you can get to school without having to risk your life riding on a main thoroughfare. Also,with a bike, you can come and go when you want without worrying about finding parking or hitting traffic. If I catch the bus right when it arrives at my bus stop, I can get to the business school in twenty minutes (door-to-door). Usually, it takes longer, between 30 or 45 minutes. By bike, it only takes me 15 minutes to make the ride. 

On the downside, when you ride a bike, you suffer in bad weather.  Continue reading Life without a bike →

Jarrett, Student Life

Getting Fit: UT offers it all!

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As I mentioned in my previous post, I have started a work out schedule. It’s been quite an adjustment to incorporate that into my weekly schedule. Luckily for me, I don’t have class until 2 p.m. CST Mondays and Wednesdays and I have a three-hour break between classes Tuesdays and Thursdays. And as is usual in the program, I don’t have Friday classes. So as long as I budget my time between classes, study time and working out, I can fit it all in.

I thought this week I should discuss some of the many different ways MPA students can get active and exercise around campus. First there are two main recreation centers on campus: Gregory Gym and the Recreational Sports Center. Both offer full weight rooms, cardio machines, handball/racquetball courts, basketball courts and table tennis. Gregory Gym also offers an indoor jogging track, climbing wall (mainly open for just bouldering), indoor lap pool, indoor leisure pool, heated outdoor lap pool and heated outdoor leisure pool. Gregory Gym is probably the most frequented by MPAs because it is across the street from McCombs.

If you are interested in intramural sports, you have a plethora of choices here at UT. Racquetball, volleyball, soccer, flag football, softball, basketball and billiards are all choices sponsored here at UT. If you don’t have a team, you can even sign up as a free agent. Then if there are spaces on teams, team captains will call you up to join their teams.

And if group exercise classes are your thing, then UT offers more than 100 weekly classes including yoga, Pilates, cycling and dance classes. The only thing that you have to consider with this option is that all these exercise classes are “extras” and require the purchase of a semester pass to participate. I know this caught me off guard because these fitness classes were included in the general student fees for use of the recreational facilities at my undergraduate institution.

There are probably more options I’m forgetting, but I hit the highlights of what our campus has to offer for physical exercise here. If you have specific questions, leave a comment. I’ll research and get back with you.

Jarrett, Student Life

New Year, New Semester

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dumbbellsIt’s a new year. It’s a new semester. What better way to start off my first blog post of 2011 than with some resolutions.

First, upon coming to campus in the fall, I established a goal GPA for my first semester here at UT. I knew it was going to take a lot of work, studying and dedication. I spent many afternoons and evenings huddled up in the Reliant Productivity Center in the Graduate School of Business (GSB) and the Perry-Castañeda Library (PCL) toward the end of the semester. It all paid dividends in the end. I achieve my goal GPA for the fall. Now, I’ve set an even higher and very challenging goal for my overall GPA by the time I graduate. It will be hard to achieve, but after one semester I have a good perspective on the things that I could do better.

Second, toward the end of the last semester, I was discussing with one of my good friends here the prospect of starting to work out on a regular basis. It had been over a year since I was on any kind of workout regimen, and living a healthy lifestyle is something that I wanted to make a priority in my life. I think a lot of problems with resolutions to get fit revolve around the fact that people don’t consider them in the context of a lifestyle change. Getting fit shouldn’t be about losing that last ten pounds of fat or building muscle for Spring Break. Those are great side effects, but getting fit needs to be about a person’s willingness to have a lifestyle that increases his/hers enjoyment of life. So my friend and I both agreed to start working out over the break and then hit the weights, cardio and diet hard when we returned to Austin. I did research on the foods I needed to be eating to achieve my fitness goals. I’ve developed workout plans to help me with my goals. And after two days of intense workouts with my friend, I can say I am sufficiently sore to the bone.

Third, I want to be more fiscally responsible. I want to establish savings goals and budget my resources more efficiently. It’s not necessarily my desire to become stingy, but I think tracking the way I spend money will help me make better decisions about the kinds of the things I should and should not be buying. Additionally, practicing healthy spending habits now will train me to handle those resources better when I start my full-time job in the fall.

So there you go; these are my new resolutions for 2011 and beyond. What are some of your resolutions?

Academics, Jonathan, Student Life

The Final Push

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Fall classes drew to a close yesterday, and the final countdown to exams had begun in earnest.  The atmosphere has clearly changed in McCombs.  As of last Tuesday, I had become accustomed to walking into the Reliant Productivity Center (a large 24-hour study room in the business school) between 7:30 and 8:00 a.m. and having the entire place to myself.  No longer.  Today, the place was jammed at the crack of dawn.  It is now 10:00 a.m., I’ve just checked, and there is not a single seat available.  Quite frankly, the loud sighs and frantic page-turning are a bit too intense for me, so I have decided to spend my day in the more civilized math library instead. 

Though there is a full week between now and my first two exams, I doubt there is really enough time to adaquately prepare.  Intermediate accounting alone requires a week of preparation.  I am probably a day or two away from feeling comfortable with my other classes, but, then again, if the second cost accounting midterm exam was any indication, the final will be a marathon.  I will need to make sure that I have fully programmed the class material into my head if  I expect to finish the exam on time.

With so much riding on time management, I have to make sure that I don’t get sidetracked with distractions this week.  Here is what I have to take care of now so that cram week gets off without a hitch.

Buy Food:  I plan to swing by MT Supermarket (best asian market in Austin) for my  final restocking this afternoon.  I’ll need two or three bunches of green vegetables, some fruit, and tofu to get me through the next 7 days.  I’m just about out of food, and if I have to run out to the market a day or two before the exam, I’ll probably start to get frantic.

Laundry:  This, I’m doing tonight.  A full load of laundry should get me through the week.   Once again, I can’t be sweating these small details before the exam.  Oh wait, I don’t have any coins…

Run to the Bank:  I need a roll of quarters for laundry.

Plane Tickets:  Check.  I took care of these a few days ago.  I am all set to fly to Pittsburgh a few days after the exam.  My wife will be moving down to Austin with me in early December (she’s finishing up school in Steel Town a week after my fall semster is done).  I can’t wait to see her, and she can’t wait so say goodbye to snowy 26-degree winter days.

Alcohol:  None until school’s over!