Do you need a security key or is that just the paranoia talking?
“Take a day before school starts to walk around campus and figure out where all of your classes are. Don’t splurge on spending with your meal plan at the beginning of the semester. You don’t want to end up using up your plan before the school year ends. Go to organization fairs and events to get to know people. Map out your classes before registering! You don’t want to have to run across campus in 15 minutes in the middle of September.” — Maria Ponce
“The hugeness of campus doesn’t have to be intimidating. You’ll find your communities in your dorm, in organizations, in your major, so don’t worry! A major benefit to a large campus is resources. If you need help with something, 99.9 percent chance there will be free or low-cost options and people more than willing to assist, just ask! Most people won’t. Be the person who will. There’s not one way to be a college student, no matter what you’ve heard (whether it’s partying, organizations, whatever), and at UT there are so many kinds of folks that you can find your tribe. But also, take advantage of getting to know people who are nothing like you.” — Mallory Johnson
“Learn finances. Understand your bank account. Make a budget and stick to it. Have fun when you can.” — Refugio Molina Jr.
“Get involved with your dorm! Go to dorm events! The RAs will be putting together a whole host of get-to-know-you activities, and they can be great ways for freshmen to make friends early on because everyone is in the same boat as you. Join your dorm’s Facebook group, as people will be looking for others to do things with. Leave your dorm room open while you hang out in there for the first few days. People will come by and introduce themselves.” — Charlotte Campbell
“I spent a lot of my college time worrying that there was some perfect organization out there filled with people just like me. While that would have been great, being in organizations with people very different from me allowed me to expand my horizons, see different viewpoints and explore different cultures that I never would’ve had the chance to otherwise. Bottom-line advice: Don’t worry about picking the perfect social group. As long as you get out there and pick an organization or two that interest you, you will be fine.” — Meghan Magee
“Go meet with an academic adviser every semester! Plan out all your semesters to graduation as soon as you can, and keep revising it as things change. And remember there’s no one right way to graduate from UT. You have to put in some effort to figure out the best way for you, but other people can help you with that.” — Anna Glendening
“Look for the free things, like how B-cycle lets students ride for 60 minutes at a time for free. And study abroad! Maybe not in your first year, but start looking at study abroad programs early to see what you might be interested in so you know how much you need to save and the classes/trajectory you might need to take to qualify.” — Kyser Lough
“Go to office hours for your professors and make sure they know who you are. Don’t only come to them when you’re upset about a grade. Having a professor in your corner when it comes time to find an internship or a job can make a difference. Focus less on getting perfect grades and more on learning. I know that’s a tough one for a lot of students since they likely had to make all A’s in high school in order to get into UT. Take the tough classes and challenge yourself. In the long run, that will be more valuable than making an A instead of a B.” — Robert Quigley
“Go to activity fairs, and don’t be afraid to try something on your own. It might not be interesting to your roommate or anyone on your floor or from your high school, but if it sounds interesting to you, it exists! Go check it out and meet the other people who think it’s cool! They want to meet you, too!” — Kirsten Gassman
“If you’re left-handed, most big auditoriums have a left-handed desk on the left end of each row. Also, the Co-Op sells left-handed spirals.” — Daulton Venglar
“Getting lost on a Cap Metro route is a rite of passage. Join a student organization. Create a budget.” — Mary Ibarra
“If you’re feeling down because an exam just gave you a slap in the face, the turtle pond brings great Zen.” — Marievel Santiago
“Make sure you have good study skills; if not, learn how to study quickly. Make sure to utilize your TAs and office hours. The hardest part of classes is knowing what you don’t know.” — Maria Aviles
“Take advantage of the informal classes and study abroad. I did neither, and I regret it.” — Joshua Avelar
“Scope out where your classes are before the first day! The Texas app always crashes during the first week.” — Cody McCrary
“Really get to know your professors on a personal level; don’t just see them as the person who grades your work.” — Mary Margaret Johnson
“Cliques are now a memory unless you join a Greek org, which is also great, but look to make new friends with kids from a variety of backgrounds. One of the awesome things about UT is the diversity.” — Niklaus Peters
“Find a job on campus. Many are like an internship with great transferable training!” — Brad Watson
“Don’t be afraid of failure. You won’t know what you can’t do until you fail at it.” — Matt Hardigree
And now here’s my advice: Take advantages of resources like the learning center or writing center. You’ll get a better idea of how to study, write papers and prepare for tests, which can only help improve your grades.
Lastly, it’s normal to feel overwhelmed or even doubt yourself. If you need help adjusting to college life, the folks at the Counseling and Mental Health Center can help. Take the time to learn more about yourself and the best ways to practice selfcare. Because once you start here, you’ll change the world. coming in from Rio Grande Valley and El Paso, as we’re trying to make sure it’s not just Central Texas.”
On the surface, the conversation the Babes are trying to continue is about gender inequality.
“We’re trying to show people that there is a discrepancy in the industry and we’re missing out on a lot of talent,” Hervey says.
But Hervey wants to go beyond addressing the problem to being part of the solution.
“The festival has never just been about booking all women on a lineup and saying, ‘This is fixed, right?’ It’s this ongoing dialogue of ‘What do we need to actually fix it? What are artists’ needs?’”
For three years, Hervey says, her organization has been collecting data to answer those questions, conducting interviews with roughly 1,000 artists. Throughout their research, three basic needs kept surfacing: money, visibility and access to resources.
This year, festival programming was designed to address all three.
“For me, with the festival, it’s been important that we continue to book artists who are monetizing their practice and who are participating in the economy,” Hervey says.
The Babes are “flying in talent that’s figuring it out, that’s figuring out the industry and can potentially show other people how to do it by either observation or conversation.”
Hervey thinks visibility is “probably the biggest barrier if you’re dealing with gender inequality or discrimination, any sort of intersectional issue.
“(It can) affect how you’re perceived by press, how you’re perceived by bookers or just the people you hang around with who might put you onto shows,” she says.
“All those little things add up over time. So we want to use the festival as a means by which to really show visibility and to show solidarity and to say, ‘No … we are here … and this matters.”
There also will be music industry panels at Cheer Up Charlie’s on Saturday afternoon and a closing brunch discussion at the Red River club with owners Maggie Lea and Tamara Hoover on Sunday. Adding educational opportunities, as well as mixers where artists and fans can network, is one way the group is trying to increase access
Our personal data is in so many places online, whether we want it there or not. It’s become time to stop asking whether we’ll ever be hacked and accept that it’s just a matter of when and how badly.
With that in mind, you can think about the risks you face if your emails, your Social Security number or your electronic health records are exposed and start taking some measures to at least protect what you can. Twofactor authentication, which to resources this year. They also have offered professional development opportunities to participating artists.
Earlier this summer, they did a “big head shots thing,” producing professional photos to use for the festival and also to give a promo shot to each artist that they can continue is another layer beyond a regular password when you log into sites (say, a code sent to your phone or email), is a great first step. Another may be a physical security key, such as Google’s new Titan device, that you carry around with you and either plug in via USB or connect with Bluetooth when logging in. The idea is that a physical device that contains security hardware makes it even harder (though not impossible) for hackers to get hold of your accounts. But they’re not free: Google’s version, currently available to Google Cloud customers, costs $20$25, to use. They also connected with Fons PR to get a few filmmakers into director Q&As and helped facilitate other creative workshops for festival artists.
“I’m trying to turn the festival into kind of this forwardfacing moment for people in the community to just see how and others on the market range from $20 to $100.
Is it a measure too far? Is it just another item that could get lost and fall into the hands of thieves?
It’s not perfect, but as with two-factor authentication, it’s just one more tool making it harder to get to your digital information.
In this feature, we define a tech term, offer a timely tip or answer questions about technology from readers. Email ogallaga@statesman.com. cool this is,” Hervey says.
“It’s more than just booking an all-woman show. It’s really showing up and saying, ‘I’m invested in this infrastructure. I’m invested in this scene. I want artists to eat.’”