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Inside Scoop

Quick Stats

School Slang
  • ATT or Alma: Alma Thomas Theater.
  • Brown Scholar: Students that receive full tuition, room, and board.
  • The Bubble: The term describing how separate SU is from the rest of the known world.
  • The Chapel: Lois Perkins Chapel, located at the center of campus.
  • Comm: Short for communication studies, which is by far the most popular major at Southwestern.
  • Commons: The cafeteria housed in the McCombs Campus Center
  • Cullen: The Cullen Building, SU’s oldest edifice.
  • Dirty Rush: During the fall semester when Greek students invite first-year students and independents out to dinner or other activities.
  • DLC: Dorothy Lord Residential Center
  • FAB: Fine Arts Building. Those that major in the arts (music, drama, visual arts) are called “Fabbies.”
  • Fabbie: A theatre/music major
  • First-Year: Our fancy name for freshmen.
  • FRA: Fitness and Recreational Activities. This includes classes like Playground Sports and Swimming for Health and Fitness.
  • FYS: First-Year Seminar.
  • GDI: God D#@n Independent. Those students that do not participate in Greek life.
  • The horseshoe: The one route that takes you from one side of campus to the other, named after its similarity to the shape of a horseshoe.
  • IFC: Interfraternity Council, oversees male Greek life.
  • ITS: Information Technology Services. They fix your computer when it breaks!
  • LC: Lord Residential Center
  • The mall: The Academic Mall is a large grassy area in the middle of the Southwestern Campus horseshoe
  • McCombs: McCombs Student Center.
  • Meet Book/Meat Book: At the beginning of each year, the school publishes the Register, which includes names, hometowns, and majors of the entire incoming freshman class, accompanied by a photograph that the incoming student sends in. Some call it the “Meet” Book, because it helps you meet people. Others call it the “Meat” Book, because people check out the guys or girls in it like pieces of meat.
  • Mood-Bridwell: One of SU’s oldest buildings and home to many teachers’ offices.
  • Mouthwestern: The secondary name for Southwestern University derived from the belief that everyone knows everyone’s business. This term is used whenever someone finds out the story of their weekend is being retold by people they have never met
  • Olin: The Olin Building.
  • PAIDEIA: SU's honors program. It’s nice to put on a resume and is looks great to SU faculty and staff, but all students are aware with such a low GPA requirement- it’s not much of an "honors" program.
  • Panhellenic: Panhellenic Council, which oversees female Greek life.
  • Phis: (Pronounced like 'fries' without the 'r') members of the Phi Delta Theta Fraternity
  • Pikes: Members of the Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity
  • Pirate bike: A Southwestern campus communal yellow bike or a female student with a loose reputation
  • Quiet Hours: The time (usually 7 p.m. to 10 a.m. on the weekdays) during which you can’t be noisy in your dorm.
  • RAC: Robertson Athletic Center.
  • Registration: SU still has manual registration, which means standing in a long line, praying your courses don’t fill up, and then rushing around the Walzel Courts like a madman.
  • Sigs: Members of the Kappa Sigma Fraternity
  • Sixth Street: A street in downtown Austin that is home to some of the best clubs and restaurants in the nation.
  • SLC: Smith Library Center. The main computer lab on campus.
  • Study break: The Wednesday night gatherings/parties at the frat houses.
  • StuFo: Student Foundation, which is like a grown-up version of Student Council.
  • Townie: A resident of Georgetown, Texas that does not currently attend Southwestern University
  • Walzel Courts: Basketball courts inside the Robertson Center. Home of Registration.
Things I Wish I Knew Before Coming To School
  • Don’t be embarrassed if it takes you five years to graduate—it takes many people five years to graduate.
  • Don’t hook up with anyone during Orientation Week unless you’re okay with everyone knowing.
  • Get an on-campus job ASAP.
  • Registering for classes as soon as possible is a large determinant of how your semester will follow
  • Take AP classes in high school to get POKs over with early on.
  • The free printing lab makes it unnecessary to buy and drag along a printer, paper, and ink
  • The recovery position
  • With emphasis on lectures in almost all classes- skipping isn’t the best choice of action
  • You don’t have to go to all of Pirate Training, just the first couple sessions when you get free stuff.
Tips to Succeed
  • Arrive at least an hour before your scheduled time for registration to stand in line.
  • Check e-mail as much as possible for updates from professors, organizations, friends, and important information
  • Don’t talk negatively about Greek organizations if you’re planning on going Greek. Ever. It will get back to Panhellenic or IFC.
  • Never underestimate the impact of a camera at a frat party
  • Never underestimate the power of Mouthwestern.
  • Take advantage of all of the little extras that SU has to offer: career services, office hours, organization fairs, free health days, study abroad programs, etc.
  • Time management is extremely important to balance all you will have on your plate
  • Visit your professors during office hours as much as possible. They get lonely, and your grades will definitely improve if you go chat with them.
  • When in doubt, become a communications major.
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Southwestern Student ReviewsWhat's This?

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Inside Scoop at Southwestern University

chancea

'13

English

4.2
A-

Academics Better Than Other Schools

The academics are challenging, but rewarding. You don't skip class and only go to take tests, you go to learn and you're rewarded for it.

Unique opportunities: Paideia, a liberal arts honor program in which you actively engage in learning through academics, civic engagement, and intercultural experience.

Sep 29, 2011

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Inside Scoop at Southwestern University

ferrell2

'13

Political Science and Government

4.2
A-

A Unique Liberal Arts Education

Southwestern typically goes unrecognized outside of the education world for the amount of work the students do. Students at Southwestern typically have much more work than the state's two top public schools, UT and A&M.

It is not a regional university, but a small private liberal arts college, and the workload is very centered around those values. Classes are always intense, but also very small, and the teachers, advisors, faculty, and staff truly care about you.

There is basically nothing "normal" about SU, it's entirely unique.

Aug 30, 2011

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Inside Scoop at Southwestern University

blaqkpupil

'13

Psychology

4.6
A

Liberal Arts Is the Way to Go!

I never would have imagined that a small liberal arts school would be a place for so much diversity and open-mindedness in a community. Southwestern is like a small hidden jewel that not many people are aware of but almost everyone who experiences it wouldn't change it for the world. The proximity of the campus to Austin allows for students to enjoy many of the aspects of Austin's music and social scene with the smallness and exclusivity of a small campus environment. Faculty are like second-parents to many of the students and spending even a summer in Georgetown usually ends up as an exciting experience. It's hard to go home even during our school-year breaks because we love it so much there!

May 16, 2011

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Facts

Traditions
  • Candlelight Service: Candlelight is the annual Advent service held in the Chapel the week before winter finals. The choir sings carols, and at the end of the service all the lights in the Chapel are turned off. Everyone is holding a candle. The pastor lights one candle, and then the light spreads throughout the entire church. It’s very beautiful, and practically everyone goes, even non-Christian students. Many people invite their parents to come.
  • Final Scream: During the week of finals, there is a 24-hour quiet-hour policy in place. The only exception is Final Scream, which is 10 glorious minutes of cranked stereos and screaming. Some years, the drum corps has played on the mall during Final Scream.
  • Late Night Breakfast: The Commons opens its doors for one hour only, from 10 PM to 11 PM on the Tuesday of finals week. They serve breakfast along with a heaping helping of wackiness and entertainment. Faculty members are the wait staff.
  • Mall Ball: Fall and Spring Mall Ball are family-oriented days at SU. The school puts a giant slip-n-slide and moon bounce on the mall and serves barbeque on the McCombs patio. Faculty members usually bring their families to Mall Ball, and local Georgetown residents are also invited.
  • Matriculation Ceremony: On the last afternoon of Orientation week, all of the incoming freshmen process into the gymnasium, between two rows of smiling, robe-clad faculty. Then you sit there and listen to the school’s President talk about integrity, honor, yadda, yadda, yadda. Your parents sit in the bleachers, cry, and take pictures. It’s symbolic of becoming an official SU student. It sort of feels like a backwards graduation.
  • SING!: SING! is a Homecoming tradition that pits organization against organization on a field of play that everyone enjoys: musical theater. All the clubs on campus (Greek and non-Greek alike) spend countless hours writing witty dialogue, changing lyrics to popular songs, and practicing choreography in anticipation of the big weekend. Alumni flood back to campus to watch the show. SING! is probably the most popular tradition on campus. The sororities are die-hard SING! competitors, but pretty much all of their “skits” look like drill team routines.
Urban Legends
  • A wealthy donor refused to make a grant unless the sororities were not allowed to have houses. When the donor dies, the sororities will be allowed to have houses on campus, like the frats.
  • Each of the frats and sororities are given a Meet/Meat Book at the beginning of the year. They all sit down at chapter meetings and vote on who’s hot and who’s not, and that determines whether they’ll invite you to their parties.
  • Eighty percent of Southwestern students end up marrying someone they met at Southwestern.
  • If you walk on or across the University seal in front of the Chapel, you will fail all your classes. (Even the groundskeepers don’t drive their golf carts over the seal!)
  • It is rumored that Southwestern has the third heaviest workload in the nation. Students would attest to this being the truth, although faculty tend to lean toward the myth side of the spectrum. Either way, students notice if the workload is too much early on and will either tough it out, or transfer by second semester of their first year.
  • Southwestern has the highest percentage of fifth-year seniors in the nation.
  • The ghost of former Southwestern President James Samuel Barcus supposedly haunts campus. There’s a group of students who keep his memory alive by helping “Barcus” (one senior guy with a wig and ski mask) make appearances at various campus events, such as SING! No one knows who will be “Barcus” each year, or how they are selected.

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Most Recent Student Author

College Prowler guides are in the hands of students throughout the entire process. Because you can't make student-written guides without the students, we have students at each campus who write, edit, and survey their peers for every guide that we publish. Thanks to our most recent student author at Southwestern

Name: Jazz Thomas

Hometown: Houston, Texas

Major: Communication studies and Theater arts

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