It’s more like: Random Talk of Importance
I don’t know about y’all, but I’ve been spontaneously encountering chats of severity lately. “”What are these?”, you may ask. These are chats sparked up by something random that lead to subjects like healthcare, education, the presidential election and social welfare. These conversations and dialogues are continuously becoming more numerous in my daily life and I don’t know what the reason behind it is. Is it because I am on the cusp of entering the real world? The world where you have things in your own name and not your father’s. The world where your home is not where you grew up. The world where thefearofnotknowingbecomesexponentiallyominous! Yeah. Scary thought. It’s happening. My age group is growing up. My Facebook is constantly increasing in ‘married’ relationship statuses and sonogram images. Like why errbody gettin’’ pregnant? Anyways, one particular talk sprung up yesterday. I would have written about it, but didn’t get a chance to.
It all started with one student expressing his annoyance with the amount of students who, for lack of a better term, are not the sharpest tool in the shed. Now, I have heard this more than once in the past few days. Students claiming that UT has allowed these students in to satisfy numbers, quotas, or to get more money. Many start explaining how they got into UT without the prior top ten percent rule and how it should be abolished. I reminded them that UT has revised the rule to be that admittance for the top 8% is automatic and the remaining students will be admitted based on a holistic view of their application. Roughly 75% of the freshman class will be top 8 percenters while the remaining will not. Because I am an upperclassman, this rule honestly did not and does not apply to me in that it doesn’t affect me directly, but other students seem to believe that this allows for students who are not ready for UT’s core curriculum into UT preparing them for inevitable setbacks and failure. I then added the point that the top ten percent allows for automatic diversity in a sense. Another student also chimed how it allows students from rural areas into the city. No serious judgments were made beside the fact that many students at UT aren’t up to par. Understand that this dialogue is coming from an upper division biology course full of pre-med, pre-grad, and pre-dent students. Everybody has a complex.
Another topic that was brought up was the fact that UT is so insanely large. Many spoke about how students get lost more than not at this university. One student could personally attest to it. He didn’t do well at first and was let go before being allowed to come back and give another whack at it. He divulged how yes, when he first got here there was no guidance. No one tells you what to do let alone how to do it. You must be your own advocate. This is true. In order to help with this, UT has implemented many freshman groups to help make the university smaller, but unfortunately, not all programs last for more than one year. I work at the Dean’s Office and see many students plumb not knowing how to handle their academics let alone choose their classes. It’s slightly painful to see their faces when I tell them the information is all online 1) because it is and 2) because the sheer amount of information is overwhelming without guidance. So, yes, students get lost frequently here, but hey, that is definitely the real world. No one is going to tell you how to live your life…except your parents of course.
Lastly, I know this is long but one more thing! Another peer of mine spoke about readiness for the life after college and it got me to thinking. Are we ready? I mean look at us. We can barely pay our taxes without help from mommy and daddy. Most of the peers that I know are severely and completely dependent on their parents and will be fore the next few years. So tell me. Are we ready? Hell no, but I think that is the point. Having to figure things out makes for a better adult, so while I am complaining, I am not complaining because in foresight, I will ultimately be a better adult if I have to acquire things for myself. Human nature kicks in and Darwinism intensifies. Are you the fittest?
PS. Did you know that University of Texas at Austin is the richest public university in the country and the third richest university overall!? Yes, everything is bigger in Texas including endowment funds. Awesome.