[quote text_size=”medium” author=”Joseph Manusco”]

Ask nearly any student you meet and they would happily rant endlessly about the shortcomings of the university…other than the coursing river of complaints, UTD is a pretty great place to both live and learn.

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It seems that the only thing more bountiful than UTD’s rapid influx of new students is the complaints that students bring with them.

Ask nearly any student you meet and they would happily rant endlessly about the shortcomings of the university. They will tell you that dining hall food is ruining their health or that they spend more time trying to find a parking space than they do in class. They couldn’t be more wrong, because other than the coursing river of complaints, UTD is a pretty great place to both live and learn.

Despite popular opinion, the residence halls aren’t so bad. Every time I hear a student complain about how unfair living in a dorm is, a small bubble of rage rises within me because the student doesn’t seem to realize how good he or she has it. Residence halls in some public Texas universities may as well be likened to your local shady motel; each unit is little more than two beds crammed into a small room.

Here at UTD though, we live in the lap of luxury (and have a sense of privacy). Each resident in our residence halls has his or her own bedroom with a locking door, shares a bathroom with two roommates and has a common area to relax and be with friends.

The university has addressed the issue of on-campus parking, a major problem in the past years, by building a parking garage set to open in fall 2013, with a second on the way. Seven hundred additional parking spaces will be added to the campus, leaving the university free to focus its attention on easing residential parking problems.

A standard parking pass at UT Austin will cost a student $120, and the upper-level passes can set you back nearly $750. At the University of North Texas, 45 minutes away from UTD, a general parking permit costs $135, while a resident permit costs $250. A UTD Gold pass, on the other hand, gives students access to nearly every commuter parking space on campus and costs only $70. If you can bring yourself to flag down a Comet Cab, the university will even shuttle you from the remote parking areas to the main area of campus.

Students who get the midnight munchies have had harsh words to say about on-campus dining, namely that there aren’t enough late night options.

After a push by Student Government, The Pub began running extended hours, from the evening into the early morning.

Similarly, when students called for additional locations from which to buy their meals, the university responded by rolling out a new food truck that served food at various locations on campus. I won’t comment as to the quality of the food, but it is difficult to deny the effort being put forth to improve the quality of on-campus life.

Let’s start taking more pride in the fact that not only are we one of the best universities in Texas, but that we are always getting better.