The Best Four

The Best Four
Riley on set of The Best Four
Season 1: UT Austin

On-Campus v. West Campus Apartments: UT Austin Junior Talks Jester West, Meal Plans, And More [RILEY]

Episode Description

In our latest episode, Laura talks to Riley, a rising Junior at UT Austin, to chat dorm life versus West Campus living from someone who’s done them both. 

Riley shares his firsthand experience living in Jester Hall at UT. From the pros and cons of meal plans and roommate matching to candid discussions about communal bathrooms and the realities of laundry day, Riley offers an inside look at dorm life that every incoming freshman should hear.

Transitioning from dorms to off-campus living, Riley dives into his time residing in an apartment in West Campus. As a leasing agent at a local property, he provides invaluable insights into what it’s like to live just steps away from campus. From amenities to community vibes, Riley discusses the perks and challenges of apartment living in one of Austin’s most vibrant neighborhoods.

In this episode, we cover:

  • Living in the dorms (Jester West) as a Freshman at UT Austin
  • Living in a West Campus apartment (Rambler)
  • Pros and cons of on-campus meal plans and dining halls at UT 
  • Tips from a West Campus leasing agent 

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This episode is brought to you by Rambler ATX and Daydreamer Cafe. 

Rambler ATX

Rambler ATX is a student apartment located in West Campus near UT Austin. With options ranging from studios to 6-bedroom apartments, there’s something for everyone. With dreamy Tulum-inspired interiors and amenities including a resort-style pool, two-story fitness center, a dedicated study floor and more, you don’t want to miss this. Use the code THEBESTFOUR at RamblerATX.com to waive your application fee when you sign a lease (a $50 value).

Daydreamer Cafe

Daydreamer Cafe serves hand crafted coffee, espresso and matcha drinks and artisan pastries. With two locations in West Campus, its the perfect spot for UT Austin students to grab a coffee or study with friends. Use code BESTFOUR10 on the Daydreamer app to get 10% off your next order. 

Super nice about UT, they kind of like, Austin had rezoned the city and pushed all the students basically to West Campus. It’s super fun just because literally everyone’s there. I always talk with my friends, um, when’s the next time in our life that we’ll be able to like, have our friends like five minutes down the road?


They say college is the best four years of your life and where you live and who you live with  is a big part of what makes it great. I’m Laura, and I talk to students across the country about their student living experiences, the good, the bad, and the memorable. So you can learn from them and truly make these your best four. 


This episode is brought to you by Rambler Austin. Rambler is a student apartment located in West Campus, just blocks away from the University of Texas. Y’all, this place is stunning. The first time that I walked in, I was absolutely blown away. I want you to think Tulum meets Austin meets retro. Also, the amenities are insane. They have a sauna, a resort style pool, two level gym, and my personal favorite: on site coffee shop called Daydreamer Cafe.


The Rambler Matcha, my personal fave. I highly recommend checking out their website, rambleratx. com, for loads of information about anything you need to know about student housing. 


Plus, you can get your application fee waived by using the code THEBESTFOUR. So again, application fee waived by using the code THEBESTFOUR. T H E B E S T F O U R.


Today I’m here with Riley. Hey, Laura. Hi, Riley. Good. How are you? I’m so good. Thank you for having me. Good. Thank you for being here. Yeah, literally anytime. 


Just down the street. So tell me a little bit about you. What, you’re a UT student? Yes. What’s your year? What’s your major? I’m going to be a junior. So upperclassmen.


I do advertising at Moody. So I get like a little bit of creative stuff, some analytics in there.


Um, but yeah, just a good time. Honestly, I love coffee. Cool. Um, are you in any organizations on campus?


I’m in absolute Texas. It’s going to be a co ed spirit org. Super fun. I get like, I have a bunch of friends. We do tailgates and things. Cool. Go to games, have some parties. 


Yeah, I love that. And what do you do for work right now? I’m a CA. 


I work at Rambler in Austin. And so I kind of just help in the office wherever they need. We’ve been doing a lot of leasing lately, so that’s kind of been the focus and some creative stuff like catching reels and things. Awesome. 


So where is rambler? So it’s in West campus, it’s for UT Austin. So super close. We’re like a block away, at the front. So diving in a little bit about your student living experience, where are you from? I’m from the Dallas area. I know everyone’s from a metro, so I’m way south Dallas. Yeah. It’s called Midlothian, a little tiny town. I have heard of Midlothian. Yeah. It’s super fun. 


I definitely don’t go back as much as I should, but yeah, a little Southern experience.So you came from Texas, so you’re an in state student. Where did you live your freshman year? I lived at Jester West. West is obviously the best. What can I say? Is there a Jester East? Yeah. It’s East and West. It’s two, like, huge buildings. It used to be like the biggest in Texas or something. 


I think I like lived in my brother’s same room like 16 years ago. Yeah, it’s actually crazy. That’s amazing. Yeah, I was like facetiming him once and he was like wait go outside and he’s like that’s literally my place. That’s awesome. Yeah, so I kind of just didn’t know like if anything else. I just knew about like on campus housing.


So that’s how I ended up there. So you lived at Jester West, which is a dorm. An on campus campus dorm? It’s over by Greg So it’s right off Speedway, It’s super close to the PCL. It’s super fun, like it’s kind of on top of everything. Yeah. You get the gym, you get, you’re like right next to DKR Stadium, so you get to see Texas ball super easy.


Um, but yeah, it’s just on top of everything. So you had a true freshman year dorm experience. Would you recommend Jester to incoming freshmen? 


Yeah, it’s definitely, for me, like I felt like I needed to grow up and have that experience. So for some, I like, that’s definitely a good way to go. Like I definitely cherish my time. I knew a bunch of people on my floor, like the three doors down. Um, and so I definitely really just like the heritage that came with it. 


Like I’m on campus, I get to do the thing. Yeah. That’s all I knew though. So. Okay. You, you said that’s all you knew. Um, did you have a lot of knowledge about housing coming in as a freshman? 

No, not really. Like my brother lived on campus. It was, he did the dorm for two or three years. And so that’s kind of what we figured I would do. Just get that first, like trial, you know, I’m living away. 


I have a meal, like a dining hall down below me. I also needed that. Like there was no way I was going to be cooking last year. Right. Um, so it was just a lot of conveniences that I, It’s just always there. 


Yeah. So why did you choose an on campus dorm versus an off campus? Did you know that there were off campus dorms? I knew there was like Castilian, like Casty. Um, but I didn’t know too much about it. I knew it was very Greek life and that wasn’t necessarily where I saw myself.


I would go to visit my friends and things, but it wasn’t for me. So, yeah. So are there any other dorms that you would recommend besides Jester? 


I don’t, my friend lives in the honors squad. I hear mixed things. Like it’s definitely very studious. You get to go ahead and have your nice quiet hallway, so that’s definitely a plus, they have a nice courtyard. But I only know people really that lived in Jester just because it’s so big, like it’s massive. 


Okay. So you said that. What was the one that you just said? 


Honors. There’s the honors quad. So it’s like four buildings. It’s up north. And you said that was very studious. So what was the culture like at Jester West? Oh yeah.


So Jester, there’s definitely always something going on. Like you can, you’ll get off the elevator at 2am.


Someone’s up roaming the hall doing something. Like someone’s awake. Yeah, that’s fun. So what is something that you wish that you knew as an incoming freshman about housing?


I wish I knew there were more options. I don’t know what I would have, I probably would have gone the same way, but I definitely think if UT was a little more open with like what all is available, just because I didn’t even, I saw their one apartment that they have and I was like, it seems so expensive comparatively. 


I would just get my meal plan, you know, that type of thing. So you had a meal plan? Yeah. Would you recommend freshmen getting meal plans? 


So UT, UT does it very, it’s awesome. It’s like so communal, kind of communism. It’s great. Like everyone gets the same meal plan. Yeah. You’re all paying for the same thing. Oh really? Yeah. So there’s not tiers. It’s all unlimited. So there’s like, there’s actually like commuter meal plans. So if you live off campus, you can go to do that.


And so I did that this year. I got one of the 60 meal plans. It gave me some flexibility. I knew I’d have a lot of exams. I knew I’d have stuff. And so for like exam week, I could go ahead and get breakfast. I could do all the things. That’s nice. Um, and then not have to worry about meal prep. 


You said 60. So if you have a commuter versus what is, what are the differences in the two? If you live on campus, they go ahead and give you the full thing. So you get like unlimited meal swipes. Yeah. Um, you get like dine in dollars, Bevo bucks, the whole works. 


What’re those? What’re Bevo bucks? Some places on Guad and some places around UT like some local establishments will go ahead and take those. Okay. So Cabo Bob’s is a great place. It’s super nice to have.


I love that. Um, and then for the commuter meal plans, they have the 2060 and unlimited. And so you can kind of like range if you need to. 2060 like, so it’s like taps. Like tap to pay. Back to it. A month? For the whole contract. So it would be like for the whole semester. It carries over.


So if you don’t use all of it, you can. How much, how much is that? I want to say it’s around four to six hundred dollars. Okay, do you think that’s worth it? It was good for me because I was able to have the flexibility from it. I mean we live right next to Kins and so I was like, I’m a big breakfast person and sometimes I just didn’t shop. So I could go ahead and just have it. 


So it definitely worked out for me. Okay. Yeah. Cool. So kind of going back to dorm living, what would you say are the pros to dorm living and what would you say are the cons? 


So I’d say the biggest pro is location. Like I would be able to go to Greg at 11 o’clock at night.


Yeah. And what is Greg? Maybe for the people that don’t know? Greg’s going to be the big gymnasium. Um, the volleyball team always plays there. That’s their place.


There’s always like Wednesday volleyball and so my friends and I would line up, we would get out of class, we would go line up and we were like first in line because we live there. 


Yeah. Um, and then there was like an Alabama game. We were able to wake up at like 4 a.m. We got there at 4:30. 


So location, pro. Yeah. Any other pros? Location is pro. Um, meal, like, dining hall, downstairs, pro. The environment and the culture, like, everyone’s there. It’s, like, you’re a freshman at UT, you’re doing your thing. Yeah. Just everyone being there, you’re always, like, able to see something that you would never expect. Yeah. Like, if you want your college experience, you got it there. 


How many people lived at Jester West, would you say? Maybe fourteen hundred? Like it’s massive. It’s like fourteen stories. Yeah, you can get lost in the back rooms. 


Like there’s an alley. So we talked about some of the pros of living in an on campus dorm at UT. What would you say some cons are? Biggest con would literally just be the laundry. I’m so privileged to be able to say that, but waiting until 2 a.m. I promise I wasn’t waiting until Sunday. Yes. 


There were multiple times where there’s like one machine because the other two are broken on the floor and it’s massive and everyone’s like, I don’t know how it gets that late. I’ll start at 11. Someone will take out my laundry from the machine. 11 a.m. or 11 p.m? 


Oh, 11 p.m. It’s totally me waiting on it. It’s definitely my fault. Yeah, it’s definitely my fault for sure. What would be, uh, another con of living on an on campus dorm at UT? 


Another one of my cons of living on campus at UT would probably be the actual, like, rooms. Love them. They’re great. They’re from the fifties or whatever. They’re nice and old. Retro. Retro, I know, retro chic. It’s so cute. 


Um, but living in that little box with another person, no matter how nice they are, like it can just get rough. I think that’s a transition, you know, going from having your own maybe, maybe. Yeah, I did. 


I’m an only child. Thank goodness. I could not do. An only child tries double occupancy challenge.


No, actually it was, it was fun the first time around. I had my roommate, Tommy, he was great. Um, and yeah, he was awesome. He was in Greek life. We both had different schedules. We would hang sometimes and then he had to move back home. 


It was like two months of bliss. I had no roommate. It was my own room. I got to do whatever I wanted. I had my own space. And then finally, UT emails me and they’re like, hey, we found a replacement. This man, I really hope he’s not watching this. There was, I’m not going to say his name, but one time, it was the first weekend we met. Um, literally that first weekend. 


He goes out, he had a little too much to drink. This will get gross, but had a little too much to drink. We’re here for the memorable. Yeah, this is a memorable. This was memorable. This is ingrained, like deep seated in my brain. Comes back an hour and a half later. It’s nothing like I, there’s no time has been passed and he’s stumbling. 


His friends like push him in and they just prop him in the chair. The lights are off. Like I’m trying to go to bed and he is making some noises. And then he like projectile vomits. And so then he’s like unconscious. I don’t know him. First weekend. I’m like, how do I clean this up? I’m like, Oh God, 2 a.m. again, calling my mom like, hey. It was just me. 


I cleaned it up. That’s tough. So like living in a double occupancy room, having those couple of months by yourself, do you think that that’s maybe what? Yeah, it was bliss.


It was great. It was definitely like, Oh, I can see the light at the tunnel. It wasn’t too bad the first roommate. It definitely depends on who you have. 


We vibed, but I definitely got a little taste of what it would be like to live my little hot life in Austin, do my thing. And have my own room. So yeah, yeah, definitely helpful. Kind of moving on to your sophomore year, which you just finished your sophomore year. 


Yeah. I made it. I did it. Officially an upperclassman. So where did you live your sophomore year at UT? So my sophomore year, I lived at Rambler, right next to UT. So yeah, super close, super cute. Love the vibes. I also work there. So I am a CA. So I get the inside scoop. Definitely enjoy that. But it’s been fun. I definitely enjoy just. It’s a big, big community.


So it’s off campus? And off campus where? It’s off campus. Super nice about UT, they kind of like, Austin had rezoned the city and pushed all the students basically to West campus. Okay. And so it’s really like you have that community, a lot of undergrads, everyone’s there. That’s where all the Greek life is. A bunch of spirit orgs. 


Like they all have houses there. It’s super fun, just because literally everyone’s there. I always talk with my friends. Um, when’s the next time in our life that we’ll be able to like, have our friends like five minutes down the road? I don’t know. I don’t know of a time. I talked to my parents and I think we take that for granted a lot. 


No matter what, just being in that neighborhood is so awesome and I, I hope I can live in a city like that again. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I think. Back a lot to my college living experience and being in a town home with all my friends. We were living in a little cul de sac with a bunch of other people we knew and I know I miss it all the time. That’s so sweet. 


I want to do a house because I’m like it just seems so fun. You get those memories, have house parties. Wine Wednesdays. Yeah. Like the morning after debrief. Oh yes. The debriefs go crazy. Or like the getting ready. Yeah. And then you go out in the morning after debrief. I do. You will miss that when you’re out of college.


So cherish it now. I go after class and I will walk to another apartment and we’ll be like having the best time in the bathroom. We’re all getting, well, they’re all getting ready. I’m not. I’m sitting there patiently, been ready for an hour and a half. Like we’re having a good time. 


So there’s like 40, 000 people and it feels like, you know all of them. It’s the best feeling. Yeah, and that’s living in West Campus. Yeah, that is literally living in West Campus. It’s just, everyone’s right there. So do some sophomores choose to live in the dorms again? Or do they mostly move? I know friends that live on campus as sophomores. Okay. Um, my friend Isaiah, he lives in the Honors Quad. 


And so, he’s done that the second year. It really worked out for him. Do you know why he chose to stay in the dorms? I think it was a really good location. He’s in plan two. So very studious. Um, it’s pretty good price. What is plan two? 


Oh, you haven’t talked to a plan two student. No. It’s like the glorified. I’m sorry. I’m not crapping. I don’t get any number. Like it’s so sad. I’m just a student. Yeah. Plan two is going o be the honors program at UT Austin. So for him, living in a dorm makes sense because he needs quite a lot of time to study and all that. Yeah, definitely. 


So some sophomores do choose to live off campus their sophomore year. I‘ve debated it. I debated living off, like staying on campus that second year. 


I definitely just really wanted my privacy. I wanted my own room. I could have done that, um, in Jester in another dorm, they do have that, but the flexibility of having a kitchen, that’s another thing. Yeah. I wanted to talk to you about that. 


Cooking your own meal. I’m not the best cook by all means or by any means. Like I could not cook to save my life, but like making your own ramen that’s not in a little microwave tin or just chefing up some chicken alfredo, making a salad, a smoothie, great. So is that something that you think that you were really missing when you were in a dorm?


When I was on campus, I definitely did not have the full kitchen. I wish I could have been able to watch my diet better. Like I definitely attribute that for sure. Yeah.  I did just fine, but I know I could have been more conscious. I’ve learned a lot of things.


I took nutrition. And so there were a lot of things I wanted to implement and try and make that I just couldn’t. So. Yeah. So was Rambler already built or was this one that was kind of in the works and new development? So, Rambler at UT was a new development. It was its first year. Kind of that first year, my friends had heard about it. We went to go get some free coffee. Honestly, amazing. The free coffee is a must. I definitely recommend.


Daydreamer is awesome. Plug Daydreamer. Like at Daydreamer Cafe right now. Everyone go follow. Obviously, they’re the best. Lynn, everyone’s amazing. Yeah.


Um, but other than that, I got to go ahead and have a little mock kitchen, what your living room would look like, that type of stuff. And so it’s a good idea of like what I’m able to get for this next year. And they had really good prices. I’ve heard from other UT students that it’s kind of the hot new thing. Like  everybody moves to a new dev. Yeah. Do you think that that’s true? It was so cool. Like that’s all the buzz. I think that was a lot of it. There was so much buzz about Rambler. I’m sure other places as well, but specifically about Rambler, everyone was like, everyone’s talking about it. It was a cool place to be. So what was your, what has your experience been like coming from a dorm, moving into a new, a new development?


Moving into a new development after being in a dorm. I was glorifying this. This was amazing. I would have my own kitchen. I’d have my own room. You can’t deny like having your own room is amazing. 


It’s a must. And so just being able to have that own space and freedom was. More independence. Yeah. More independence. You could go do your own thing. 


Was there any like curfews or any rules at Jester West? Oh, there’s no curfew, but there’s basically after I think it’s 11 or 12, you have to swipe in. And so no matter what you’re doing, you have to swipe in. So you look like, you look crusty after a night out. You look crazy. Your hair is insane. 


If you’re visiting someone, you have to go swipe in. Someone has to bring you down to tap you in. So it’s a lot of pressure. So swipe in, you have to like see a human being? You have to go to the door, yeah. 


There’s a human there sitting, watching everyone walk by. Yeah. So that’s a great thing. You don’t have to swipe in on an off campus apartment. You don’t have to see anybody. You can just get to your room. Yeah. That walk is bliss. That’s great. Yeah. What about the bathroom situation? Oh, yes. I love a communal bathroom.


I love a communal bathroom. Do you? No. No. Okay. Sorry. So, definitely not. So we have our little corner. We, everyone, I’d say it’s probably eight to 12 people probably share a bathroom. Yeah. It’s like a boy’s bathroom, a girl’s bathroom. Okay. Kind of sectioned off and it’s just crazy. Yeah. There’s so many people, someone would, it’s really gross.


I don’t know what would happen. Do they keep it clean? Who’s in charge of cleaning it? They clean daily. I think they clean twice a day technically, but if you would destroy the toilet, I don’t know what they would do. But we would literally get our toilet privileges revoked. 


Like they would, they would put like, they would put a bag over the toilet if it was clogged. If it was like unbelievably clogged, it would be like that for a week or two weeks. So we’d be down to two toilets. At the end of the semester, it was like, we had one toilet. My friends, like they didn’t have a toilet for,


I’m not kidding, a week. Like it was over a week. Where did they go? What did they do? I don’t, I don’t know. They went down the hall. Starbies? Yeah. No, literally.


They would go to Jendy’s. It’s going to be the Wendy’s inside of Jester. Jendy’s? Jendy’s.


There’s a lot of history to this Jendy’s, okay? So bathroom, obviously, massive upgrade going from dorms to Rambler. Did you have your own bathroom? I was, okay, no.


I did not have my own bathroom. Whenever I lived like off campus that first year for myself, I shared a bathroom with one other person. So it’s a four bedroom, two bathroom. It’s still an upgrade. It’s  an upgrade. I cannot stress enough. That was a breeze. That was a walk in the park. We could clean it ourselves. We knew each other.


Yeah. Yeah. And what about hosting Having people over? Oh yeah. So definitely, whenever we host, we, all of my roommates, we love to have people over. So it’s super nice. That’s good that you guys are on the same page about that. I say that. We definitely are mostly on the same page about it. I like having people over. 


Um, it’s fun to meet everyone’s friends. I definitely recommend living with a lot of people. I’m a very social person. My battery like gets filled by others around me. What’s your sign? I’m an Aries. Oh, fun. Yeah. So apparently fiery, but yeah. Social. Social. Very social. Yeah. I hope my roommates enjoy it. Yeah. They’ll have a good time. But we get to host a bunch. We have a good floor plan. We have a little island.


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So we talked a little bit about how you found out about Rambler as a freshman. Um, when did you sign your lease to live at Rambler. So I signed in September of the year before. Wow. So I know for a lot of places. So, like almost like a full year before. Yeah, full year. All my friends that go to Tech and go to Cstat, none of them, like all the other Texas schools, they all sign in maybe February. 


Wow. And it’s, it’s crazy. Like my brain can’t handle. Yeah. How could you not know where you’re gonna be? Exactly. It’s just like a given thing that you’re expected to know. Like you should have had your roommates by then, obviously. 


Is, so you think that housing at UT is just way more competitive than other universities? Yeah, I think that’s a lot of it. I think there is a lot of competition, just the actual neighborhood itself being in West Campus, like having a good place, a place to host at is super nice. Um, and so there’s only so much, I guess. And so that’s probably why. Yeah. It’s also nice whenever you have a bunch of friends living in the same building.


I know like a lot of sororities and like my spirit org, they’ll go ahead and do that where it’s like, they’ll all. Do people in your spirit org live at Rambler with you?


I know a few. That wasn’t the reason why we signed. Um, but it’s nice to have like a friendly face down the, a few floors down. And so, just having that little neighborhood inside of the place is super cool too.


How did you find your roommates going from living in the dorms? Because we heard about your last roommate. few So the way I found my roommates, um, off campus. So I uh, I found them organically, really. So one of them was a friend of a friend.


Remy’s awesome. He’s so cool. Yeah. Uh, we vibe super well. He’s a great roommate. That’s how I found him. It was a four person. Um, I had another friend that just joined, as well.


He needed a place. So just friends of friends? Yeah. Yeah. How did you get the word out. Did you post anywhere?


Did you text a chat? Like how did you get connected with these people? Yeah. So I got connected with these people just through friends.


It took a while. I definitely texted some people in my org. Um, not everyone’s budget lines up. And so that’s like a big thing. Obviously, like you want to be able to do what you can, live where you can. And so that’s a big thing.


And so I honestly was through my friend, Ava. They grew up together, Remy and Ava. So that’s how I found him. A lot of friends. I didn’t really post necessarily. Yeah. It’s definitely a good resource. I know people. Do people post? Yeah. Yeah.


I see people all the time. The big thing right now is like the UT Snap pages. Okay. So every UT class gets a snap page. Mm-Hm. And at the end of the year, it’s all just like apartments. 


It’s like, hey, come live in my four person apartment. Just for the people that maybe don’t know about Snapchat. It could be the elder millennials. Oh, that’s, that’s okay. I’m on reels. I do Instagram for them. Um, I love reels. But for Snapchat, for a lot of Gen Z, we use it to text our friends. Um, a lot of instant messaging.


But there’s a stories feature. And so, it’s just for your class for that own story and you can see the other classes too. You just can’t post to them.


But you did not find your roommates that way? You just found through your friends? But people post there.


That’s not entirely true. One way is I had one spot open. And so, it was a random roommate. when I’m on a tour, I’m telling people, I’m like, yeah, the rando, I love him. He’s great. We resigned next year.


I think that’s good to know that like you can match with people randomly and it goes well. I don’t know how we vibe so well. We share a bathroom together. We’re both, he’s more clean than me. I’m probably the dirtier one. But it’s, we have good schedules. He sleeps, like he sleeps on a reasonable time.


He’s not up in the middle of the night or anything. Do you guys fill out a survey though, right, when you roommate match? So, y’all probably matched in that way, a bit.


We do roommate matching. And so it’s kind of like, are you an early riser? Do you drink? Do you think people lie on those, though? Oh, definitely. Like I’m positive all of them should say clean. Cause if you’re outwardly saying. I mean, maybe that’s a good thing, but if you’re outwardly saying you’re dirty. I think you should say you’re outwardly, like, if you’re not super clean. Yeah, you should. You should be up front about it. 


You should. You should be honest. You really should. I don’t know. I’m pretty neat. So I guess, I think it worked out honestly. Yeah. Roommate matching worked out for us. It’s the moral of the story. Don’t be afraid to roommate match. No. Moral of the story. Moral of the story, don’t be afraid of roommate match. But you have to be honest on your survey. 


Yes, please! If you’re not honest on your survey. Oh, and include, like a little insider tip, please include your allergies. If you’re allergic to a cat, we don’t want to hear about it two weeks before. We want to know. We want to make sure that you’re not with a cat. Yeah. So send us your little allergy thing. We want to make sure that you have a good time. 


Right. Yeah. That’s something we ran into. That’s a good segway into being a community assistant at Rambler. So you also work there. You don’t just live there. You work there. I wear two hats.


Super fun working and living at my place at Rambler. Are there any other perks of, you know, living and working at Rambler? The perks for me, like, working where I live,


I really enjoy getting to know what’s going on. I definitely like that. So I get the inside scoop. I enjoy that aspect. Yeah. Um, but other than that. You’re in the know. I am in the know.


I’m definitely in the know, but I get some coffee discounts. A little things, some good coffee Rambler has a onsite cafe, right? Yeah. So Rambler has daydreamer cafe. Again, plugging daydreamer as they need to, they need to be hyped up. Um, and so that’s always nice to have a good, like half price latte. Do you get any like rent discounts or anything? Yeah. Yeah.


So we did just start getting a rent discount. That’s been pretty awesome. How much is it?


So it’s 20 percent when you start and it goes up to 30 percent at a year.


So if you stick around, I’m saying you get commissions and then you also get your rent discount. So you’re getting paid. Yeah, I get paid. You’re getting commission. I get commission. 


And you’re getting a rent discount. And some coffee on the side. And some coffee. So it seems like a pretty good gig if you’re looking for, like, sales marketing. If you’re doing your advertising thing, if you’re doing your marketing stuff, it’s a great spot. I mean, even business, it’s negotiating.


You’re getting a lot of that. Um, if you’re doing art, I, my coworker does, uh, she’s an art major, like a studio art major. And so she gets to work on a lot of fun projects with that too. So awesome.


Little creative stuff. So being on the other side of leasing, being a community assistant at a building in West campus, what are the, would you say, the top three things that students need to be considering when they’re deciding on a place to live?


When you’re deciding on a place to live, um, and you’re in that leasing office, there’s a few things that you should probably consider. I’d probably say first and foremost is having your price in mind and having that conversation with your family. Um, just so you know what, what’s achievable. And then also understanding what comes along with that and fees and things.


So some places will have a green fee and some places will have a floor premium or an attached bathroom premium. And so those things add up. So make sure to have that conversation whenever you’re there so you know what you’re expecting down the line. Do you think it’s a red flag if apartments are kind of dancing around? Yes!


It’s so weird. In a time where we’re inundated with information, it doesn’t really make sense why you would hide your price and call three times. We’re all gonna find it eventually. We all want things now. We’re students. We’re Gen Z and we’re gonna be frustrated if you kind of like lead the, like hide the, bury the lead or whatnot. 


Absolutely. And so I definitely recommend, like we have, not self promo, but we have a little tab that has fees and things all outlined. And so that’s a super important thing because they’re going to be signing a legal document. They’re going to see it eventually. And so put those things in there.


Include that, um, have it on the website. That’s super important. It is a bit of a red flag if they don’t, because it’s like, why do I need to call you? It’s 2024. I call my family.  


Who’s calling? Who’s calling? I’ll FaceTime my family. Like, am I going to FaceTime a leasing agent? No.


Definitely not. Maybe I’ll text you. Yeah. Oh, for sure. I love a good text. Well, Instagram DM. Yeah. Yeah. Always DMs. Do a lot of guys do a lot of business in Instagram DMs?


Oh, strictly business in the DMs. We do  crazy business in the Instagram DMs. It’s hilarious. No, it’s so, it’s so fun because it’s like you’re literally getting all your info from a little social media app. You’re getting your little fees Send us a DM, tag us, do your thing. It’s so much fun reading through the DMs. Yeah. So question one, what am I actually paying for? 


Yeah. What am I actually paying for? Yeah. Question number two, what’s your roommate matching looking like? So that’s a big thing. If you have, if you don’t have a full group, what is going to be like, what are you going to be able to offer? 


Is there a lot of availability in that floor plan? That means you’re working with a wider pool. You might end up finding a really good roommate that way. Another good thing that I’d say is whenever you’re on your tour and asking and checking in with your leasing agent, check in about what do they offer extra.


Like are there resident events? I feel like we do a pretty good job offering fun things.


We had a charcuterie board, a vintage market. It’s super fun. Like a little extra thing that you can go ahead and grab. It’s a community. You want to meet some cool people there. It’s a ton of people. Again, you’re not living with this many people ever again, probably. 


And so it’s nice to be able to have a place and have stuff to go back to. Another thing I’d say to like, when you’re going on a tour and you’re with that leasing agent, see how the place looks.


I’m, I’m fortunate to be at Rambler. It’s a very pretty property. It smells good. Notice the smells. Those are big things.


Um, I know it’s so funny. Someone’s always like, what’s that smell? It’s fabuloso and a candle. It’s amazing what it can do. Um, and so that’s a big thing of like, do they take pride? Do they take care of where they are? Because that’s going to like, go further, how they treat you, I guess.


Would you say it’s important to sign early? A lot of people push that urgency.


A lot of buildings do. Do you agree? Whenever you’re signing for a place in West campus, it’s pretty, it’s super competitive. So I definitely recommend signing early. If you have a full group, you’re able to lock that in. It’s awesome to not have the headache down the line, because some stuff happens throughout the year, things change. 


And so it’s, it’s good to just be able to have that. It’s not something you’re worrying about in the future. That’s on the back of your mind. You’re able to get your finals done. You’re able to do your own thing. And so that’s a big thing of signing early I’d say. Have you ever had to deal with like a roommate straggler that just like won’t sign?


Yes, actually, yes. Do you see that a lot? Yes. We see that all the time. And I’m so shocked that the other people don’t just step in and be like, hey, like let’s get this going. I am not letting you fill that.


Because they will fill that spot. They so will. Um, and so I had that kind of this past year. Um, one of my friends had joined us and I was just like, Hey, like, a little nudge, like, what’s up? Are you going to finish this? 


They’re all getting on my butt. Because you said that the apartment will fill that spot. Yeah. Yeah. It is. I mean, it’s pretty competitive. Is there a specific timeline that they’ll hold that spot for? Yeah. I don’t know if it’s standard, but for us at Rambler, we’ll go ahead and hold the spot for like 48 hours, 72 hours.


It depends on the demand, but I mean, we’ll go ahead and hold it for them. Honestly, we, we do our best. Like we want to make sure that everything works out. We’re trying to work with them. And so, if there’s a conversation with the family that they’re needing to wait on, or if they need to hear back from FAFSA, we do work with that. So it’s always like, have those conversations, explain what’s going on in your life, because we see y’all as someone who’s coming here. 


We don’t know, like, we don’t necessarily know what’s going on. Right. And so it’s good to keep them in the loop. Because if I know that you need to hear back about FAFSA, or like, something had just changed, or maybe you’re going to a different university, those are big things that, that are big factors we’ll be patient on. So, looking ahead, where are you going to be living your junior year? 


I’m living at Rambler my junior year, obviously. So you decided to stay. Yeah. I decided to stay. Well, you have a job there. I do. So one. What are some other reasons why you chose to renew versus moving? Especially if the hot new thing is something else.


Yeah. So I, we did, I talked with my roommates cause we all vibed with each other. We all realized like, hey, this could work really well. We respect each other. It’s a really good environment. And so we had that conversation pretty early on of like, we’d like to stick together and do whatever is best for like the three of us and whatnot. 


And so having that conversation, um, we were able to realize like one of my roommates is studying abroad right now. And so it’d be really difficult for them to move everything and go somewhere else.


So that was a big point of contingency. So you’re able to stay at Rambler over the summer?


Yes. Are you staying in the same unit? Yeah, so we offer full year leases at Rambler. Nice. It’s super nice if you have an internship. Okay. Um, it’s super great. I mean, Austin’s a cool place. I don’t know about all of y’all. But I’m from Midlothian. Love it. There’s not that much to do. We don’t have Barton Springs. Patrese’s at the Vortex isn’t there. Definitely don’t have that. South Congress isn’t there.


Right. So you wanted to stay. So where you live at Rambler offers full year leases. Is that common in West Campus? Yeah, so in West Campus apartments, it’s pretty common to go ahead and offer a full year lease. Honestly, I’d say it’s probably the standard. Um,  it’s going to be, you’re in Austin, you’re getting your experience. You can take a summer class.


It’s a great way to just be here. Establish your roots. You can still go home and hang and do all your stuff, but it is, it does have peace of mind just to not have to move your stuff out for three months and come back. Because that’s a big turnover for no time.


So what if you decide to move apartments? Is there a weird, like, little time where?  Yeah, so the way a lease works in West Campus, it’s going to be kind of midway through August, so it’s that weekend before move in, or sorry, that weekend before school starts, is whenever the whole neighborhood moves in. There is going to be a weird two week period. And so. but that doesn’t happen if you renew? Yeah. If you renew, that doesn’t happen.


We also work with our renewal transfers. So, if you want to transfer a unit and you get on it early enough, um, we can, we’re pretty flexible with that. We try and work through a turnboard and make sure that we can fit you in. 


Um, but typically if you were to go ahead and leave, or if you’re moving into a different place in West campus, there’s going to be that two week period of just sitting at your friend’s place and you moved your boxes to a little storage unit. We had to pay the whole month. Is that usually what people do, is they just put their stuff in a storage unit? 


How much do those usually cost? So that’s a good question. I think it’s about seventy dollars a month. Okay. It depends on the size. You can get a three by five, a five by five. Yeah. I stored, I stored my marimba in one once. It’s like a really, a really big xylophone. It’s massive. It’s a six foot long xylophone. 


Um, and so I gotta play it there. So yes, there’s totally options nearby to store your stuff while you’re waiting to move for an apartment. It’s pretty inconvenient. You’re going to have to drive to East Austin. You’re going to have to drive downtown and take all your stuff to go back to the same neighborhood. It just doesn’t make sense.


I think I knew, uh, an intern of mine just put all of her stuff in her car for two weeks. See, I would love that. I would love to put all my stuff in my car for two weeks. I drive, I used to drive a mini and now I drive a Miata. Yeah. So there’s no storage. You can’t do that.  It’s not going to happen. 


Also, just Austin. Yeah, I don’t really, I don’t think you want to put your whole life in a car that could just easily get. Yeah. Crime knows no zip code, so you would definitely want to be careful. Whatever you have. So if you choose to move apartments, you have that two week where you’re having to put your stuff somewhere. Yeah. You’re crashing on friends couches. You chose to renew so you do not have to couch hop.


I don’t have to couch hop. I’m so thankful. Peace of mind. Yeah. Are you living with this? You’re living with the same roommates? Yeah. Yeah. I’m living with the same roommates. Um, since we’re, we’re actually transferring units, so we’re joining, we’re bringing another one of my friends. 


Super excited. They lived, um, they lived in a sorority house last year, so they got the full other experience. It’s super neat to hear their date events, coming back to the house and all that stuff, but it’s nice to be able to have everyone just be able to move in right now. Yeah. Awesome. 


So would you say, so far, that these are looking to be the best four years of your life? These are definitely looking to be the best four years of my life. I’m not peaking now, but I’m having a great time. I’m definitely having an awesome time. I love the people I’m around. I’m, I love Austin. It’s so cool to just like hop in a little watering hole or like go down speedway. So yeah, definitely the best four years, for sure.


What’s your one piece of advice that you would give students when finding a place to live? My one piece of advice for students, whenever they’re finding a place in West campus, is definitely going to be just talking to your family and having that discussion early because it’s super important that you’re all on the same page.


And you want to make sure that someone else isn’t pressuring you and you’ve already done that. 


And so just having it all secured. And having your family in mind, cause that’s obviously important. It’s their decision too. Yeah. I think that’s a great piece of advice. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here today and sharing your stories and your experience. Thank you for having me, Laura. So fun. Yeah, of course.


And we’ll see you guys next time.

Bye guys.

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