Alright, alright. Welcome to UTD, or whatever. You sure picked a winner. If you aren’t on a scholarship or don’t live 5 minutes away, I don’t know why you’re here, but I’m not your advisor. I’ll be real – if you’re expecting a coming-of-age movie type deal, drop those expectations now. This isn’t Pitch Perfect. The girls aren’t nearly hot enough. 

UTD isn’t like other schools. Your parents probably told you to be friendly, start conversations, that everyone around you is as nervous and wants to make friends as badly as you do. Your parents were WRONG. That might fly at whatever lame party school they went to, but UTD is different. I’m here to give you a couple tips for being successful on campus. Don’t thank me, Venmo me.

Tip 1: Offline? No Time!

The number one most common mistake I see with students here is trying to take classes in-person. Stupid idea. Stupid. Your first priority should be taking as many online classes as possible. There are two reasons for this.

The first is that online classes require less work. In-person classes will stuff you with worksheets and in-person exams, but you don’t need that to learn – you were ranked top 10 in high school.  If you take your classes online, you can ChatGPT all that useless shit. Just join the meeting for one class a week and play Minecraft while your professor talks. You’ll absorb it all passively, and when you graduate and enter your chosen field, it’ll be subconscious for you.

The second is simple: less people. Screw people. People suck. People at UTD especially suck, since they’re all either stuck up pre-med chicks or business guys who think their coloring sheets are worth something. The only respectable major is computer science, and us computer science majors have the dignity to leave each other alone. Most of the tips in this guide are about avoiding people, because it’s the most important key to your experience. 

Tip 2: There’s No I In Team… But You’re Not On A Team

Welcome to the real world, kid. No one can tell you what to do anymore. Even if you still live with your parental units, you’re 18. Tell them to go kick rocks. You’re an adult, so there won’t be any negative consequences. It’s time to find what makes you feel comfortable in your own skin. UTD is a lot of things, but formal isn’t one of them. If you feel cool showering once a week, go for it! If smelly pits don’t bother you, who cares? Why clean your room if you know that your take-home quiz is under the two-week old pizza box? No point.

Some people only care about your outside appearance. Those people are shallow idiots who don’t deserve to breathe your BO. If someone is worth your time, they’ll see you for your personality. They won’t care about your personal hygiene. Think about lacking deodorant as a test. If someone cares, they fail, and they weren’t good enough for you to begin with. If some hot pre-med chick in the Student Union rejects you and says you should take a shower, you’re perfectly within your rights to call her a snotty bitch who isn’t hot enough to turn you down. She’s a bad, shallow person for not seeing past your obvious trap, so you’re clearly morally correct.

Tip 3: Do Not Engage. Ever.

Yeah, there are student organizations on campus. Don’t even begin to bother with them. This is UTD. No one is here to ‘make friends,’ they’re here to get a degree and get out. Anyone who pretends otherwise is pathetic and delusional. Besides, I don’t care how much free candy you got at Cometville, those people are NOT your friends. They’re your competition. 

This school is all STEM and business majors. We all want the same spots at the same companies. Everyone else is just a sniveling little rat trying to claw at your potential, to bite and rip and tear at your dreams to claim for themselves. The only way to stop it is to become a rat yourself. If you aren’t in first place, you’re in last, so do whatever it takes to be the best.

If you want to be a sad idiot with no future, go for it! Go Greek, join a club, start a Dungeons & Dragons group. But know that everyone else is playing the game, and they’re playing it better than you. Sarah from Database Systems might act sweet and give you her old Calc 2 notes, but as soon as you let your guard down, BOOM! You just lost out on your best internship prospect. To SARAH. Who hasn’t even designed her own compiler, the stupid whore. That Google internship was MINE.

Tip 4: Avoid The Riff-Raff

There are a few hotspots on campus where the plebs like to congregate. Chief among them is the dreaded Plinth. Dropped inconveniently directly in front of the library, this cesspool of charity bake sales and DIY indie concerts is the bane of any self-respecting UTD goer’s existence. There’s nothing worse than trying to study with the blaring sounds of a sunset concert streaming from the Plinth. It ruins the whole library. 

I recommend the tunnels underneath the school as both a quiet study spot and a way to get around campus. Though conventional wisdom says that they are “impossible to get into” and that “you’ll be expelled if you’re found down there,” the labs have an excess of hydrochloric acid which easily melts through the grate, and I’ve found that there’s plenty of space beneath for a place free of distraction or simpering idiots trying to sell you vegan cupcakes for puppies with cancer. 

Now, the more time you spend indoors, either in your dorm or in the tunnels, the more uncomfortable the sunlight will be. Good. The less reason to leave the safety of the tunnels for the apocalyptic landscape of stumbling, Starbucks-carrying zombies above, the better. Those sheep are below you. Do you understand me? Don’t waste your time with them. It’s an exercise in frustration and misery to try to associate with lesser beings. You are so much better than them.

They don’t deserve the joy their ignorance affords them. They get to spend their useless lives pursuing useless majors that will make them useless in the future. Not like me. I’m better. I’m so much better, and I’m going to show them all why they should be a genius misanthrope like me. Soon, they’ll understand. Caring about the things around you only makes it worse when they’re taken away. So I’ll take away what they love. TEACH THEM why they shouldn’t bother with classes and friends and anything other than themselves. They’ll learn…

Anyway.

Hope these tips help. My Venmo is @KevinsKash.