West Campus TELL ALL from a recent UT Austin grad: housing regrets, roommate tips, and more [Sharlene]

I haven’t lived with my best friend since, since, since our freshman year. Um, I was super adamant on Our relationship not getting in the way of our living situation.

They say college is the best four years of your life and where you live and who you live with are important parts of your college experience.

I’m Laura, your host. I talk with students across the country about their college living experiences, the good, the bad, and the memorable. So you can learn from them and truly make these your best four.

Today I’m here with Sharlene. Hi, Sharlene. Hi, Laura. You recently graduated from UT Austin. Congratulations.  

Thank you. Um, so, would you say that college was the best four years of your life? Is that true?

So far, yeah. One hundred percent. Like, I had a great time. Um, going to college here in Austin was an incredible experience. It expanded beyond campus, which I’m so very grateful for. Yeah. Austin is a great place.

Good city to go to college in. I went to college in Arlington, Texas. So, um, a little bit different, a bit different, a bit different.

Um, mostly just, you know, rangers stadium, cowboy stadium and six. How about them? Cowboys. Were my biggest attractions. Um, so Austin is definitely a great city to go to school in. Um, so I know we know each other pretty well, but let’s pretend that we didn’t tell me a little bit about you, where you’re from.

And you know, your whole spiel. Yeah.

So I’m Sharlene. Um, I’m originally from Lubbock, Texas, so I’m a Texas girl at heart. Yep. Um, I don’t know if you can tell by my boots and your boots. Um, but I came to Austin, uh, studied communications and entrepreneurship at UT. And. Yeah, it’s, I’ve been working in social media for the past two years and I’ve been getting a lot of good experience meeting a lot of great people.

It’s a great city. It’s been a great four years. Yeah. Okay. So you grew up in Lubbock. Um, and then you, why did you choose to go to UT? So I wanted to. Definitely expand from my roots. I felt like there was a lot more that I could be doing. Um, Lubbock is very small community. Uh, and I kind of felt like I was meant for something more, but I didn’t want to go out of state just cause it was affordability.

Um, it’s expensive. Yeah. It wasn’t realistic for me. So UT Austin. Um, not going to lie. I kind of picked UT very last minute. But what was like, what were the other schools? The other schools were Texas Tech, um, back home, but would you like, would you have wanted to do that? Okay. But it’s nice to fall back on in case I did feel like going back home.

Okay. So you chose to go to UT, still stay in state. What was your experience moving to Austin as a freshman? Did you tour any places? Like, how did you pick, like, where did you live as a, as a freshman? So as a freshman, I lived in Moon Tower Apartments, um, over in West Campus. Yeah. And it was. It’s kind of a funny story how I came across living in Moon Tower.

My best friend, um, from home, so we were both from Lubbock, my best friend and I were looking for apartments and we were looking at on campus housing and student housing and it just wasn’t fitting for what we wanted for our first living situation. Um, and we actually had never toured. Um, any of the apartments or did you come down to Austin before I did, but not for touring.

I came by to kind of check out. Yeah, for fun to kind of check out, uh, what the community was like and what just like college living was going to look like for me. And what was it? Well,

Where did you go? Do you remember where you went? Like, what were the first places that you went in Austin?

First places I went, Velvet Taco.

I mean, I, we mainly stayed around West Campus. So I was really just checking out like Orange Market and the little bodegas. And also we walked around and looked at all the Greek life. So fraternities, sororities. Um, and we also went around campus and one of the students that was kind of showing me around was just telling us about Each different building, um, the majors, uh, where we would be studying.

Is it like orientation or was this somebody that you knew? No, this was someone that had reached out to me on Instagram. Yeah. Okay. I know. I was like, ooh. Did you,

how did they know that you were going to UT? Did you do like one of those like freshman pages? Yeah.

Yeah. Okay, so. Would you say that that’s a good thing to do as an incoming freshman?

100%. Okay. So, I mainly met most of my best friends still to this day on the UT Facebook group. And fun fact, yeah, it was great. Fun fact. I, um, actually started the UT 24 Instagram page. You did? I did. Wow. Yeah. Women in

STEM, I guess. Um, so that’s how you met, um, The person that showed you around UT. So when you were, when that person was showing you around, they were the ones that told you that West Campus was the place to be.

How, how did you, how did you decide to live in West

Campus? Like specifically for what my interests were, she said that. A lot of the students that shared what I was interested in were living in West Campus. So I was interested in joining Greek life, um, coming from Lubbock and also in the midst of a pandemic, I wasn’t really too sure how I was going to like meet my people.

So yeah. Um, did you always think that you were going to rush like growing up? No, actually all throughout my high school career, I was like, Not me. I’m not that kind of girl, but then I was like, maybe I can try it. Maybe I’ll change my mind and meet girls that everyone says are going to be my future bridesmaids.

Um, and I stayed with my sorority all four years. Yeah. So yeah, I ended up loving it.

That’s good. So she said, if you wanted to rush, West campus, what else, what else were you looking for that West campus kind of fit for you?

Um, I was looking for. Big thing was walkability. I mean, I brought my car down to Austin, but I kind of wanted more of that on campus college experience without being on campus.

So I didn’t. Why didn’t you want to be on campus? Dorms. I can’t share a room with someone. I, it’s really hard to picture myself going down these like dank hallways and the fluorescent flickering lights in the hallways. Just not, not me. Um, and I also wanted to have more of a space for myself. I really value my privacy.

I would like to say that I’m an independent person. Yeah. And so just the idea of siblings growing up, I did, I had three siblings growing up and for a majority of my life, I shared a room with all three of them. Oh yeah. So now it makes sense why you needed your own space. Yeah.

Were there dorms where you didn’t have to share a room or is it pretty much like for freshmen you do have to?

From what I know is that there were dorms where you could stay by yourself, but it was just a little bit out of my price range. And for the square footage, not worth it. So it would be worth, more worth your money to live in an off campus apartment.

Yeah. Have your own space. Right. And have amenities. And a kitchen. And a kitchen. And a door that closes. Yeah. Yeah. And not have to like share a bathroom. I get it. Okay. So, so off campus living was the right choice for you. So, so you came down and explored Austin a little bit. Do you remember when that was, like, timeline?

It was February of

2020. Okay. Did you, like, decide where you were going to live at that time? Or you went back and you were still looking?

I had decided where I was going to live in January, actually, but I hadn’t seen it in person. So in February, it was the first time I was seeing my living situation in real life.

So you did go tour moon tower? No. What I did, well, moon tower is still being built. It was a new development. Yeah. So I didn’t tour it. So you chose to live in a new development. Yes. And at first, my roommate and I, Ava, were like, is this even real? Like, I haven’t seen this anywhere else. Um, it’s not built yet.

Is this a scam? Essentially. And then whenever I visited in February, um, I saw it being built, saw the construction, I was like, okay. It’s there. I don’t have much to worry about other than moving in and seeing if the quality matches what’s said on the website. So you had decided January, you came February, you saw it.

Do you think that incoming freshmen should be looking that early? Should they be looking in January for housing? I would say yes. Definitely whenever we picked where we wanted to live, um, we secured a really good rate. And we saw the rates go up as time got closer to us actually moving in. And that’s something that we would have never known. Right.

Had we not done it. Did anyone tell you to do that? How did you, you just, We just kind of figured it out on our own. Right. Honestly, we just got lucky when we signed. So you signed in January? 

Yes. So, I mean, I would even say, now that you’ve gone through it a couple of times, You know, sophomore year, junior year, senior year.

Do you think January was late? Yeah, it was. Um, I think that cause I’ve lived it in a new development three out of the four years and we’re going to talk about that.

And the last two that I lived in, I had signed sometime September, October, the year prior, the fall prior, um, secured really good rates. Um, and I lived in four by fours all four years, all three years.

And those sell out so quick because four by fours, that’s like the perfect number, perfect size, and it’s the perfect rate, perfect size. So definitely the fall prior. Yeah. So January, January was late. So moving into Moontower, what was your experience like moving into a new development coming from Lubbock, packing up all of your stuff, going to college,

What was your moving experience like?

Well, first of all, that six hour drive with everything I owned was heinous, but, um, luckily Moontower had movers there, um, to kind of get all of my stuff up in one go.

Definitely, um, was a painless experience for my parents. They really were happy cause they were also helping me move in when we got there and like we had the movers come in.

My roommates and I were just in awe of the design of the building and the decor, the amenities, um, it all just felt very surreal because my idea of like my freshman year in college, it was going to be more dorm style, more traditional looking.

Right. Cause that’s what we’re taught to believe. That’s what you see in the movies.

Exactly.

All the shows. It’s like two bunk beds, like really like weird color, like blue colored carpet. Yeah.

Not my fave, but whenever we got into our actual apartment, 1602, still remember you, um, it was the most beautiful view that we had of like Westlake Hills. And, um, it was, I know it was nice. It was fully furnished and we had this nice suede blue couch and we were like, this isn’t too bad.

We had this Mass Violin kitchen, everything. We were like, we’re set up. Like we got really, really lucky with this. Cause we had looked at all the other like student housing options, like Castilian or Calloway. Right. And it just wasn’t, to be frank, our aesthetics. Those were, had already been built. Yes. Those have been around for a while.

Yeah. Looking back now, would you change, like, do you regret not living on campus at all? No, no,

I don’t think I would have had the experience that I had if I had lived, lived on campus. Um, just like, With everything that was going on externally. Like COVID. Like COVID. Yeah. Um, my apartment somehow became like a sanctuary or like a hub.

It was hard to meet people, but people wanted to meet people. And after joining a sorority, like that was. What was rush like during COVID?

Oh, it was all online. It was an easy experience for someone that didn’t originally want to rush.

Yeah. You kind of got it easy because it’s very, it’s very overwhelming.

Right. It can be very overwhelming person. So, so yeah. So you, you don’t regret not living on campus?

No, um, I think if I had, I wouldn’t have been able to meet the amount of people that I did. Um, of course we were practicing social distancing still, and we were being very aware of, um, how many people we were seeing and letting into our apartment.

And if I hadn’t lived in moon tower, in my off campus apartment, then I don’t think a lot of the relationships I have still today would have blossomed, not to get sappy, but it was great to just have people like want to meet and they didn’t have anywhere else to go. And I was right in the middle of Calloway and Casillian.

So it was like, in like a, in like a nice new building. Yeah. Everyone wanted to check out the new amenities. They loved the rooftop pool. That was really busy in the summer. Yeah. I bet. Um, So you lived in Moon Tower your first year, and then where did you live your sophomore year?

My sophomore year, I lived in another new development. It was called Villas on Rio. Okay. So just down the street. Honestly, like, I didn’t move that far. 

So you went from Moon Tower to Villas on Rio, so that was another new development. Why did you choose to live at a new development instead of just re signing?

What I learned my freshman year is that everyone was interested in the new developments, like in my circle at least everyone thought that the new developments were the hot new thing.

Like, oh Villas on Rio is just being built. Like it has all of these amenities Let’s all move there. Yeah, especially when you’re in the Greek community, like everyone tries to do what people in the Greek community are doing. So

Greeks kind of live with Greeks? I would say so. I lived, live in like other sororities and other fraternities, like all kind of live together, mesh together.?

Yeah. I mean, of course, like it wasn’t everyone, but it was a good amount of people. Um, and like, I lived with three of my sorority sisters, um, and I knew multiple rooms filled with people that were in Greek life and solely just Greek life. And yeah, everyone was just really drawn to the amenities. Um, having this community of people that you already knew, yeah, was also a big thing.

So, aside from it being the hot new thing, what are the benefits of living in a new apartment versus one that has already kind of been lived in?

So for me, I loved the idea of being the first person to live in my unit, the first person to live in my room and to. Kind of just like frequent that area.

It just felt more comfortable to me. Right. Um, I also was really drawn to the idea of floor to ceiling windows. I’m a big, like natural light, like wake up to the birds chirping, the sun shining on my face kind of person. Yeah. Um, and so really liked that and they had great amenities also. Um, loved the sauna and fitness center.

Just having all of these, um, I guess add ons at my own home and I wouldn’t have to travel or pay for a membership or anything is having it there on site was so helpful, especially with my schedule. Um, I feel like sophomore year I was really grinding. Like all of my classes were pretty tough and I was studying all the time.

Right. Study rooms came in handy with that. Love the study room. What’s like the library situation at UT? Um, a lot of people are over at the PCL. Okay.

Or they’re at the life sciences library. Is it super like cramped and busy? Is it hard to find a space? I would say it’s busy. I haven’t gone to the PCL enough to really like be a seasoned PCL person, I chose to live in a new development With study rooms. With study rooms.

Um, I just didn’t like. It’s just for me, it feels stuffy in the PCL and the fluorescent lighting makes me feel like I’m in a hospital. Fluorescent lighting is not my favorite. No, I’m all about that ambience. Okay. So you went from moon tower to villas on Rio.

Did you live with the same people? No, I lived with, um, three girls from my sorority.

Um, so you, okay. So you, who did you live with your freshman year? My freshman year, 

My freshman year. I. Besides my best friend from home, um, we were paired with two random roommates. How are you paired with them? So, they originally had the room and technically we were matched with them. Okay. So the apartment did it.

Yeah, the apartment did it. Um, they sent out this survey to new residents that were looking to, um, kind of fill up a unit and, you know, matched our preferences with these two girls. And at first my friend and I were like, Oh, I’m a little worried because we don’t actually know them and we haven’t known them and we’re super comfortable with each other and our lifestyles.

Yeah. Like what’s this going to look like? And we really lucked out, honestly. Like I’ve heard some horror stories about random roommate matching, but these two girls were great. They were in a grade above us. Um, so they had a lot of knowledge to share. That’s good.

Yeah. And they were, um, they share the same lifestyles for the most part, but they were also different in many ways that allowed us to kind of mesh together.

Right. I’ve heard people say that it’s better to live with kind of friends of friends or acquaintances versus living with super close friends. Yeah. Do you agree with that?

I would say, I mean, I haven’t lived with my best friends since. Since our freshman year. Um, I was super adamant on our relationship not getting in the way of our living situation.

But I realized because we are already so close, um, and our lifestyles were already so aligned that then putting both of us in the same space, it was too much. Um, I had to take a break, um, from living with my best friend for like a week and I stayed with another friend. Um, it can be hard. Yeah. We both have very strong personalities.

I think that’s where that divide came. And another thing is that I was, I would say that I was very tidy. As a Capricorn would be.

She wasn’t the tidiest at the time. Yeah. I’ve learned that over the years she’s gotten really clean and organized because she lived with people that were not her best friends.

That was another thing is that it was just hard for me to be honest with my best friend about maybe picking up after herself or just chores or just anything to do that wasn’t relating to our friendship.

I think it’s because you have such an established Relationship and you have like how you communicate with each other and then you move into a whole new environment with new stimuli and new things.

I didn’t want to ruin our friendship by saying pick up your trash. So you would maybe recommend, if you and your friend are going to a new university together, maybe not living together?

Maybe. For some, it worked out fine. Yeah. Just be prepared to have that communication, that open communication about things that you’re not used to.

You know? I mean, we always lived in separate houses up until that point. Like that’s something you need to consider. It’s not going to be perfect. Yeah. And I think I was expecting perfect.

So you changed roommates to sophomore year. What advice would you give to people about picking roommates?

Definitely have honest conversations about what you want your home life to look like.

That can be anything from how often you study, to pets, to noise levels. Like, you really want to make sure that you talk about every single thing that is going to occur in that household. Yeah. I mean, it’s hard to match lifestyles, but it’s good to be able to understand each other’s lifestyles at least.

It’s important to talk about every aspect of living together, making sure you’re on the same page.

But do you think sometimes being too similar and having the same lifestyle can, is that also an issue potentially? Definitely. I mean, I think that as we get older, we tend to get more independent and if we just share almost every waking moment, every value, belief, routine, then it tends to repel you from each other.

Like, so like a magnet, like the same sizes of a magnet.

Yeah. Yeah. You moved to Villas on Rio. You lived there your sophomore year. Where did you live your junior year? I lived in my sorority house. Okay. What sorority were you in? Zeta. Zeta Tau Alpha. Same. Zlam. Look at us.

Zlam sisters. So you lived in your sorority house.

Yes. I lived in my sorority house and this time I was. I didn’t choose, necessarily. I just happened to get on the executive committee for my sorority. Um, I did social media. I was a historian. There’s a trend. Um, but, and that meant that I was supposed to live in the sorority house for at least a semester.

I was already on the fence about, first of all, staying. And second of all, living in a house with 36 other girls. That’s a lot. Did you have to share a room?

I did. I shared a room with another one of my best friends. So, the one thing you didn’t want, the one thing I didn’t want to do was share a room in college. And it’s not just that I shared a room with one other person.

There was also a third like closet there for another girl that I was technically sharing the room with. Yeah. So it was three people I was sharing it with. She just lived in what we call a sleeping porch. Sleeping porch. Sleeping porch. I want to talk to you about a sleeping porch. What on earth is a Sleeping Porch?

That was like eight to nine girls in one room. They didn’t have closets in there. It was just their bed space. And everyone was supposed to be very weary of their noise. So essentially it was just dead silent. Sleeping Porch is for sleeping. Nothing else.

But they live there. Yeah. So where are their clothes?

Their clothes. They shared a room with girls that had their own rooms. So, it was me and my best friend and our third girl had a closet in there, but then we shared a bathroom with another room that had three girls. So essentially I was sharing a bathroom with five other women. And we got to get ready.

Everyone is clean, but it was just like a lot of, it was very minimal space and very minimal privacy. And I’m a very private person. So that was very hard for me. A couple of questions.

So the sleeping porch, do you know, I’m genuinely curious how much were they paying? It was very affordable, super affordable. Across the board, I would say. 500 dollars , 600 dollars?

Like why? Cause to me, why would they choose to sleep on a sleeping porch?

Sleeping, choosing your rooms, it was kind of in, um, it was like a point system, first of all, like you had a certain amount of points and you can live in the house and if you get a certain amount, if you get a certain amount of points, um, it was essentially like the high, the people who have the highest amount of points have the option to live in the house, unless you’re on executive committee, then you have to for a semester. Um, and I kind of pushed someone out of the running.

I didn’t have points really. I had maybe two, three. Yeah, but you were on exec, right? I was on exec, so I automatically was put near the top of the list. Right. And if you’re on exec, are you guaranteed a room? Yes. Okay. You’re guaranteed whatever spot you pick. Okay. So I was guaranteed a room and I don’t think that a lot of people were happy about it, but.

I got very lucky. I was guaranteed a room. But you were elected, right? No, I was elected. Yeah. So they needed me, but yeah, I mean, some people did choose to be in the sleeping porches because they could be in a room with all of their friends and some people chose a sleeping porch. Maybe too many of their friends.

Maybe. And some people chose a sleeping porch just cause it was quiet and, or maybe their mothers or other Zeta alumni had been in the porch before. Yeah. Do other sorority houses have sleeping porches or is this only a UT Austin Zeta thing?

I believe it may only be a UT Austin Zeta thing. Okay. This makes a little bit more sense why some people would choose to do it.

I’ve had UT alum that were in Greek life be like the, one of the things that I remember about Zeta is y’all have those porches where like 12 girls sleep. I was like, well, not wrong. 

And it’s just a room, right? It’s not a literal porch with like a mosquito net? No no. We have windows. There’s window’s involved.

So you lived in the Zeta house. Was not your choice to live in the Zeta house. Do you find that people in Greek life want to live in the house? I think that a lot of people do. But you didn’t. I didn’t. Just because of sharing a room. Yeah. Just because of sharing a room. And I can’t emphasize this enough. I love my privacy.

Yeah. Um, but I know that a lot of people work hard to like gain points to live in the house and friends in other sororities, like some were required to live in the house and some weren’t but a lot of people wanted to just kind of be in that community, have that experience. I mean, you really only get one year to do it.

So I completely understand. What year? Your junior year? For some people it’s sophomore or junior year. Okay. So it’s specific to the sorority itself. Yes. Specific to the sorority. Every sorority is different. Um, Zeta, it was a choice unless you are on exec. Unless you’re on exec. Okay. So where did you live your senior year?

My senior year I lived at Rambler. Which is, was another new dev or was that? Yes. Okay. Another new development. So you went to another new development. Mm hmm. Same reasons as before? Anything specifically about Rambler that made you want to live there?

I really loved  the design of Rambler. Um, I don’t know, the aesthetic really just  matched, uh, my personal aesthetic.

So that really drew me in. Yeah. Um, I also really loved the location. I was a Moody student. And so it was a very short walk from Rambler to, uh, Moody College of Communication. So that was great. It was, um, also close to where I worked and it was just very convenient for me. Um, and I was able to live with like, all three of my very close friends in my sorority.

Um, one being my previous roommate. Okay. Yeah. One being my previous roommate. From the Zeta house? From the house. Wow. Yeah. So you guys survived living in a room together. We survived.

It was tough. We had our differences.

Would you say that those were like your best friends in Zeta or were they kind of like, okay?

Yeah, they were definitely my best friends. So you did end up living with like, Super close friends and it worked out? Yes. And you guys are still friends to this day?

Um, yeah. And I think one of the big things is that we all led very different lifestyles during the day, but of course, like we would reconvene, um, for a girl’s night or to like go out on the town.

You mentioned that you were, you wanted to be close to Moody because you were a comp major, where should other students that are in other majors, like where, where would they want to live?

I know that a lot of business majors, um, or just like McCombs in general, they would be also in West campus. It, it was fairly spread out.

I feel like a lot of people were willing to make that trek to go to whatever college they needed to. To, to live in West campus?

Like that was the most important thing?

Yes. Okay. Like, so it’s less about being close to your classes and more so living at West Campus. It’s more so truly about like where you want to live.

Um, so, I mean, McCombs is a little bit more inland on the campus, or more so in the center of campus. Yeah. Um, and like all the CNS, which is College of Natural Sciences, and like, Nursing and law, those are more so on the East side. And so some people tend to live in North campus, um, because it is less of a walk, but it really just depends on your preferences.

So, those that still choose to live in West Campus but maybe they’re on like the East side. Do they drive?

How do they like, how long does that take? My roommates were in CNS and they did decide to just take that trek. Um, it was maybe 15 to 20 minutes. They would just have to leave a little bit earlier than everybody else.

But I mean, it’s a good walk. Get your steps in, I would say. You never chose to live in a house. Why not? Why apartments? Well, first of all, looking or finding a house to live in, you have to be extremely early. If you thought that signing to an apartment the fall the year prior was early, I know some people that signed to live in their houses their senior year, back in their sophomore year.

So they had signed to live in their senior housing back when they were sophomores, which is something that not a lot of people are aware of. Um, are they mostly like passed down? Like, you know somebody? There are some houses that are passed down for certain organizations. And those are almost impossible for people outside of the organizations to sign a lease with.

Yeah. So apartments were just easiest. Um, and also they had the amenities and they had like the security, which is a big thing. Huge thing, especially when you’re in West campus, just downtown area. 

Um, there can be a lot of disturbances around, so it’s nice to know that wherever you’re living, you have someone on site, making sure the right people are coming in and out of the building. Right. Okay. So what was the best part of college? For me, the best part of college was this. I think I felt really close to my class specifically. So class of 2024, because of where we started.

We had this shared, um, understanding of our senior years in high school.

And then our freshman year looking very different from many other people’s freshman years, probably ever. Um, so we lacked a lot of human connection our initial year. And I think that that made us yearn for human connection more like the following years throughout the rest of our experience.

 It was very out of the ordinary, but I got closer to the people that I’m friends with today.

And although that was like a really trying time, like it was a good test. Yeah.

That’s really, I mean, it’s really powerful, honestly. And I’m sure you’ll be friends with those people for the rest of your life because of what you guys went through.

What is one piece of advice that you would give incoming students? It can be specific to UT or just in general.

So related to housing, I would say that my one piece of advice is, um, to really, again, emphasize what you’re looking for in a lifestyle, um, and really just be open and communicative with your future roommates Be it strangers or best friends from home. You definitely just want to make sure that you guys are on the same page, um, with what your routines are going to look like.

And for beyond just student housing and living, I would say, just be open to the people that you meet. Being in Greek life, I was scared of only being surrounded by people that were also in Greek life, but maintaining an open mind and really seeking conversation from people in my classes or people in my other organizations, um, it really expanded just my understanding of the world.

So it sounds like your advice. One, be very open and transparent with your future roommates. Make sure you have all the conversations you need to before so you’re not having to have hard conversations during. And two, get out of your bubble. Whatever that bubble may be. Whatever that bubble may be. 

My experience for the past four years was created by the different kinds of people that I met, and I’m glad that I was able to have that even whenever we had a rocky start. Um, like I said, that collective experience that we all shared, um, really was able to bring me and so many people I would have never thought to be friends with together.

Well, thank you so much for being here today, Sharlene, sharing your stories with us and your experiences on how you made your time in college the best four. And we will see you guys next time.