The Oncoming Swarm

By Blake Eaton

Anyone who exercises regularly at a university gym knows the phenomenon: At the beginning of the year, a swarm of enterprising young fitness buffs flock to the fitness center only to drop like flies in a matter of weeks. So it wasn’t unexpected when I found myself having to strategically choose the times I spent at the gym these past couple of weeks. Thankfully, I seem to have found my niche; it turns out that college students don’t typically wake up at 7 in the morning.

I may have avoided the crowds, but the odd thing is that those crowds haven’t disappeared. Perhaps kids these days finally understand the value of good exercise. Maybe we’ve reached some sort of generational turning point. It’s only a few years until we reach an uber-fit utopia!

Or not.

I think this surge of gym rats at UT Dallas is really the result of something I’ve discussed before on this blog. We are witnessing a school on the rise. Over the past five years, the university’s student body has grown by more than 5,000 students—a whopping 34%! On top of that, the number of top-tier students has skyrocketed, with 88 National Merit Finalists beginning to study at UT Dallas this year alone. When you put it perspective, it makes sense that the gym feels a bit crowded.

In some ways, this growth is inconvenient. Not only is the gym crowded, but busy faculty advisors are swamped with students, and the university has been scrambling in some instances to find room for the amount of classes it needs to host. Overall, these facts could give the impression that the school has bitten off more than it can chew.

I couldn’t disagree more with that sentiment. It would be easy for UT Dallas to kick up its feet and let the status quo maintain itself. As it stands, the university is a pretty great place to be. The hard-working professors, advisors, and employees of UT Dallas want more, though. They want this school to truly grow as a community and as an institute of higher learning.

Take, for instance, the Supplemental Instruction program. Started just one year ago, the program has already grown to provide study sessions and services to over a dozen historically difficult classes. I may be biased (I’m a Supplemental Instruction Leader myself), but I see SI as an emblem of what UT Dallas stands for. It stands for looking forward, for seeing what the future can be instead of what the present is. 

When I see the flock of new students on campus, when I see the oncoming swarm, I smile because I know that it means we’re doing something right.

A School on the Rise

By Blake Eaton

A few weeks ago, I had a long conversation with a friend about why we decided to attend UT Dallas. Both of us performed well in high school and could have gone to any number of “top-tier” schools. Harvard beckoned to me, but I still came to UT Dallas. Both of us made that decision, but my friend wondered if it was the right decision.

I never had that crisis of confidence. I knew that UT Dallas was the right school for me, but I had to ask myself: Why? The answer: UT Dallas is a school on the rise.

Compared to the Ivy Leagues and other more established schools, UT Dallas is fairly young. That’s especially true when one considers the fact that it only recently turned its focus to becoming a residential college. 

To be certain, going to an older school with established institutions can provide a whole host of benefits. With time comes experience, and that experience can serve to make the organization more influential. Perhaps just as important, older organizations carry more prestige, and prestige can carry people a long way in their careers.

There’s one thing missing in that equation, though. When someone joins a longstanding organization, traditions have already been entrenched. The culture of the organization is, more or less, set in stone. What’s more, leadership is hard to come by in such organizations, and newer students especially have to wait before they can stand out among their peers.

Here at UT Dallas, we have our fair share of established organizations. There’s the John Marshall Pre-Law Society. There’s Mock Trial. There’s Moot Court. More importantly, though, we have plenty of room for more student organizations.

This year, I started a new organization on campus called Whoosh the Vote. As the presidential election grew near, we registered hundreds of students to vote. We were out and about on campus, reminding people to go to the polls, to make their voices heard. Unlike other organizations, registering people to vote wasn’t a side project for us. It was our central purpose, and we were proud to make a difference on campus.

As Vice President of Whoosh the Vote during the fall semester, I experienced firsthand the difficulties of establishing a new organization. Even as I went out three days a week to register people to vote, I had to move my way through the university in pursuit of official recognition. Working with others—not just to maintain something, but to start something—is an invaluable experience. As UT Dallas grows, more and more students will be able to gain that experience, and the lessons they learn will last a lifetime.