Top Five Ways to Use Up All of Your Bandwidth on the Ethernet

1. Download music.
2. Download movies.
3. Make sure that everything you download is of the highest quality and will take up as much space as possible.
4. Download in multiples, then delete the repeats off of your computer. However, at this point, the bandwidth is already gone.
5. Let boys play video games on the network using your connection because, well, all of their bandwidth has already been used this week.

(I just have to put that one up there because I’ve been saving it all semester.)

Top 10 Things Every Freshman Will Learn
After One Year at The University of Texas at Austin

I figured that I might as well end the year on the same note that I began it, for continuity’s sake. Also, top 10 lists are just really funny.

Anyhow, these are the things that I could talk your ear off about (or at the very least tell you about) and yet it’s really not something you’re going to learn or even remember until you’ve experienced it for yourself. Besides, things like this I think are generally funnier when you’re laughing at yourself.

This could also be titled “Top 10 Things You Don’t Think You Can Get Away With Until You Do It” or “Top 10 Things You Never Thought You’d Try.”

1. Quite possibly the most important piece of advice I can give you is this: if you show up to class and the lights are out and no one’s there, you are not required to have class by yourself. Other than that, here are the rules for waiting for the instructor:

   TA: 5-7 minutes depending upon how much you like them and how much you need them to intervene on your behalf with the professor come grade time.
   Graduate Student Serving as Professor: 10-15 minutes unless it’s a very tiny class and/or attendance is taken daily (wait 20 in both cases).
   Professor: 20-30 minutes out of respect and the fact that these are the people who can get you places (wait 45 if the class is an hour and a half).

2. Yes, it is often about who you know and not necessarily what you know. Although what you know kind of determines who you know. Also, sometimes a confident smile and brisk walk can get you more places you’re not sure that you belong than any amount of talking.
3. Your classes, even if across campus, are closer than you think they are (usually, there’s no need to leave 20 minutes in advance). Your classes, even across the street, are farther than you think they are. (Usually, you will need more than two minutes to get up, get ready and get to class on some semblance of time.)
4. There’s really no need to change your major just because you didn’t get the classes you wanted during initial registration because there are always add/drops. However, if you really need/want a class and it’s restricted to majors only, you can always become that major, temporarily at least.
5. When you move out, you will find that there is more junk in your room than you think there is and more than you remember putting into it. Move-out drives this lesson home. I recommend taking stuff home about two to three weeks before the end of the year just so that you can take the rest of your stuff home without making your parents come and get you.
6. People who live in the dorm freshman year usually have more fun and meet more new people. Plus, there’s nothing like college antics experienced in big groups (playing in the mud, playing in the snow, water balloon fights, random capture-the-flag, whatever). And lots of college kids cooped up together for extended periods of time usually lead to pretty funny goings-on because a) you know each other so well (or at least some people so well), b) college kids are naturally crazy and groups of them encourage each other’s zaniness exponentially, and c) there’s no better way to distract yourself from school work than by visiting some friends down the hall or having them visit you.
7. It’s easier to get to the grocery store under your own transportation than to take the bus—but going by bus is a one-time (and one-time only) must (if you can avoid it), if only for the hilarious story you will have to tell when you get back. Also, anything that wastes more than an hour of your time is worth experiencing once when you don’t have too much to do.
8. Laundry is never a priority. You will come up with several creative ways to avoid doing laundry and make your remaining clothes last longer between laundry loads (even if that means going out and buying more).
9. You will learn your way around Austin and campus, or at least look like you have because you will learn to memorize the location of buildings from the online map rather than needing to carry one with you all the time. You will also feel sorry for the people who are still using the big maps that are in various locations around campus, especially if they are obviously not a visitor.
10. Yes, you too, even you, no matter how many Aggies you know or are related to or how much you want to pretend that the school isn’t that bad will learn to dislike the color maroon and will begin to refer to anything you like that vaguely resembles the color maroon as “cranberry” or “burnt red,” or in extreme cases, just brown.

Well, it’s been fun and I’ve really enjoyed doing these Web journals. I hope that they’ve been entertaining/informative. I love all the e-mail messages I’ve received and please feel free to continue sending them: kegoloby@mail.utexas.edu. I hope to see at least some of you in the fall and I definitely hope that the incoming freshmen have as awesome a first year as I did!

Everyone have a wonderful summer and a wonderful school year and remember that all you have to do is put on a happy face...and laugh!