The University of Texas at Austin, USA
Spring 2015 Exchange Billy Lee
If you are reading my exchange report, I guess you are interested in USA and are struggling to choose which exchange schools in USA. Maybe you have heard from others that Texas is a boring state. But I can tell you with first-hand experience that this is not true. There are two major reasons why I think you should seriously consider about UT Austin.
1. Austin offers you an unique local experience
When you are thinking about your exchange destination, you probably want to go to a place that is unique, a place that you will unlikely to go in the future. You want to have a special experience that others do not have. If you agree with this, Austin is for you. Unlike many other popular states of exchange school in US in the East/West, Texas is place with least proportion of Asian. You will seldom hear people speaking Mandarin or Cantonese on the street. What’s a better state to be at than Texas if you want to experience something really American?
2. Austin is a dynamic and growing city
Austin is one of the safest cities in the world. Guns may be heard of in other cities in Texas, but not in Austin. Austin is a young city with lots of young people, music, film and various interesting stuff. It is not a big city, but big enough to have everything you need to have fun. In fact, the city is attracting more and more people these days as Austin is one of the fastest growing city in America. Recently lots of technology companies are moving to Austin. It is this kind of growth that has crowned Austin as the Silicon Hills.
Part 1 - Monthly Activity Log January 2015
January was a month for me to settle down and familiarize with everything around me. I created a bank account and get a phone plan with T-mobile as soon as I have arrived. Then I visited some of the major supermarket like Walmart or HEB or Target to get my household products (pillow, blanket, washing powder, ready). Once these things were done, I had much more free time in attending various orientation events and visited around the city. I visited NASA in Houston in the beginning of the center with the International Office. School has started at the end of the month. But there is not much to do in the early few weeks of the
semester.
February 2015
When February kicked in, assignments were rushing in and I started to feel the academic pressure. Unlike HKUST, there must be some quiz / assignment every week and they basically takes up most of the time in weekdays. Workload was consistently high and preparation works were expected from students. Students were much more serious in class than students in Hong Kong. Phones and are forbidden in most of the class. Outside classes, I attended a few celebration events for Chinese New Year Festival organized by some Chinese Students Association and exchanges students. However, the highlight of February for me is that I took a 5 day trips alone to New York City and Boston. On the moment when I landed on the ground of New York City, I was very impressed. This was the first time I saw snow! Despite the cold weather, I still enjoyed taking tour around the heart of New York City and being impressed by the modern skyscrapers which contrast sharply to Austin. Then I took a Greyhound bus to travel to Boston and visited my friend
exchanging at Boston College. Boston was even colder. Night temperature could drop to below -10 degree Celsius. I was particularly amazed by the scene that the whole river is iced and people could even walk on the river in Boston. I also visited some key spots in Boston like Quincy market and Harvard University under mild snow. This trip was a stunning experience.
March 2015
Although March is a mid-term season, what came after midterms should instead be the focus – Spring Break! There were quite a lot of international events taking place in March like Rodeo Austin and SXSW. I strongly recommend you to attend the Rodeo Austin to experience the local culture. Most students don’t even know there is such as a grand event as the event is very local. It was a three hours of competition and
performance from cows, horse and men. It was particularly breathtaking to watch men competing with cows. There was a classic Texas band performance too. Another event is SXSW, which is a grand festival of music, movie and technology held annually. Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend this event as I decided to travel to Florida during spring break. I visited Miami beach, Everglades National Park, Universal Studio and Disney in Orlando, and Key West (The southwest part of US with stunning view; it is probably an hour distance away from Cuba). Having travelled to so many interesting places, I started off the second half of the semester
refreshingly.
April 2015
Starting from April, I became good friends with some exchange students from Thailand. With a thought to testify myself in American business case competition, I formed a team with them together with another HKUST exchange student to join McCombs Spring Case Competition. We had good team dynamics and we were very excited to see our team have successfully made to Second-runner up in the competition. Apart from case competition, I also joined a 3 days trip to Houston organized by Undergraduate Business Council. We visited two biggest oil companies in the world- Exxon Mobil and BP. I was impressed by Houston’s scale in the oil and gas industry which cannot be found in Hong Kong. During this trip, I met a lot of local friends and this makes the exchange experience very fruitful. Moreover, I also got to know some full time Chinese and Taiwan Students in April. We did a lot of exciting things together such as mini car racing (the top speed is 60miles per hours).
May 2015
May was a sad month as exchange almost ended and final exams were on the horizon. I had 4 final exams until 16 May but some of the other UST exchange students finish all their exams before May 7 already. Although I couldn’t travel before my final exams were done, I made good use of my remaining time to enjoy the final bits of Austin. We had the best burger in USA called Hopdoddy, the best pizza in Austin called Home Slice, and the best Texas BBQ called Salt Lick. I also visited Oasis on Lake Travis in Austin, which has magnificent sunset view. After exams are done, I took a 10 day trips to West Coast with my friend until 30 May. I visited Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Francisco. There were too just countless great memories on these trips. After the trip, I flew back to Austin for the flight back to Hong Kong.
Part 2 - General Exchange Information
Visa Procedures
Although visa procedures look complicated, you will have no problem at all just by following the instruction given by UTA. You will probably receive instruction in late September for Spring Exchange. They have a detailed checklist for visa application. You will first have to complete an online application and submit a transcript and financial support form in order to create the DS-2019 document, which is needed for J-1 visa. UTA will send the DS-2019 form to HKUST and after that you will just need to make an appointment with the US Consulate. Bring your passport, DS-2019, proof of financial support and documentation, US$200 SEVIS fee payment and US$141 Visa application on your appointment. It will take around 2 weeks in processing your visa application. But the most important advice is still just follow the instruction given by UTA.
Orientation Activities
Orientation activities for UTA exchange students were abundant. In fact, I think orientation is one of the key reasons why UTA is a good choice compared to other exchange schools. Most of the other Spring Exchange Students at USA only have a few days (at most a week) of orientation before semester starts. When semesters started, my friends in other USA exchange schools were still trying to settle down and meeting new friends. This looks a bit messy to me. But in UTA, you have two weeks of orientation. UTA organized a
series of orientation activities such as a short trip to Houston to visit NASA, orientation day and nights during these two weeks. This helps me to transition to a new environment and settle down comfortably before the semester started. Some of my friends even utilized that two week breaks to travel to nearby cities around Austin like San Antonino or Dallas.
Accommodations
I was living in an apartment called Dobie Center, which is located in the heart of UTA Campus. I chose it because a few other UST exchange students and I would like to live in a quiet environment. As Dobie Center is only 5 minute walk away to the Business school and it offers a full day meal plan package for the whole semester, we consider Dobie Center a reasonably decent choice. The total cost of the whole semester was around 5000USD (Meal Plan inclusive), which should be an average price level for combined expense for accommodations and meals.
The food quality of Dobie Center’s Canteen is so-so. For certain days of the week, they cooked some nice dishes. But for other days, food quality can be really so-so to be honest. The best thing for Dobbie’s Canteen is that you would have plenty of fruits, which saved me some money for fruit expense.
I heard Dobie Center has changed management since I left Dobbie. If they have improved food quality, I would think Dobbie Center could be an option for you. But if you are unsure, there is still a lot other apartment with better living conditions. But they usually don’t have a meal plan and you need to cook yourself or eat outside.
5) Courses Registration
Course registration is similar to HKUST. The good thing about being an exchange student is that you will be given priority in choosing courses from business school. So usually there won’t be difficulty in choosing business courses. For non-business courses, you will have to enroll early. If it is full, you will be on a waitlist. The possibility to get in the course from waitlist is similar to that in HKUST. Exchange program directors are very helpful in answering course registration questions and if you have any question just shoot them an email.
FIN 374C Financial Planning and Policy for Large Corporations Professor: John Butler; Workload: 5/5; Recommendation Level: 5/5
Course Assessment: 2 Exams, Weekly Assignments
This is the best course I have taken in UTA. John Butler was an expert in teaching this course and he knows a lot about the oil and gas industry. He also teaches a lot on excel skills which are useful in career of investment banking. The course provides a good introduction to valuation (project valuation, oil and gas valuation, equity valuation, options valuation, real options valuation). If you do assignment seriously and pay attention in class, you will learn a lot from this course.
FIN 377.4 Financial Analysis
Professor: Kelly Kamm; Workload: 3/5; Recommendation Level: 3/5
Course Assessment: 2 quizes, 2 presentations, 3 writing papers
This course is equivalent to FINA4204 in HKUST. It adopts a case-teaching approach in the class. You will read a lot of cases and the professor will explain the relevant financial concepts. If you are interested in knowing more about valuation, equity research and M&A this is a good starting point. Workload is not huge. However, if you are looking for deeper level of financial statement analysis from this class, this class isn’t very helpful. Professor is nice
FIN377.2 Financial Risk Management
Professor: Fernando Anjos; Workload: 5/5; Recommendation Level: 4/5
Course Assessment: 3 Exams; Bi-weekly assignments
This course is equivalent to FINA3204 in HKUST. Futures, forwards, options will be taught in this course. The difficulty of this course is the highest among the courses I took in UTA. But exams are not hard. However, I find the course material is not revision-friendly. If you miss a lesson or a few, it will be tough to catch up. This course doesn’t focus on proof behind so you shouldn’t expect you could build a strong foundation on Derivatives simply from this class. Professors are nice and knowledge.
M362K Probability I
Professor: Joel Nibert; Workload: 5/5; Recommendation Level: 3.5/5
Course Assessment: 2 Exams; 6 Quizzes; 6 HW
This is equivalent to MATH2421. The difficulty of this course is not high and topics taught in the early half of the course are already covered in secondary school. But workload is not small in this course. There will be homework and quiz respectively after each chapter. However, it is hard to build a strong foundation in probability from this class alone.
PHL313 Introductory Symbolic Logic
Professor: Sinan Dogramaci; Workload: 4/5; Recommendation Level: 3.5/5
Course Assessment: 2 Exams; Bi-weekly assignments
This course is harder than it looks at first glance. It explains logic in a lot of symbolic terms. If you are not afraid of them, it is an interesting course. Some programming and mathematics concepts are used in the course. Professor and TA are very passionate.
Sports & Recreation Facilities
Fantastic sports and recreation facilities are available in UTA. The gym was very large and it offers diverse kind of sports facility. You should make good use of it to become more healthy!
Cost/Expenses
Major Fixed Costs (HKD)
Round Trip Flight with one intermediate stop 17000 Full Semester Accommodation (meal plan inclusive) 42000 Insurance (compulsory for UTA exchange student) 7200
Total 66200
The only major variable cost is travelling. If you plan to travel to major cities in East Coast/West Coast of US for, the basic cost is approximately HK$10000.
Transportation
Transportation is convenient. UTA students can take Austin bus for free.
Climate
Temperature is not much different from HK. In winter, temperature seldom drops below 0 degree Celsius. There won’t be snow. In summer, temperature could go up to 40 degree Celsius. As I only stayed in the Spring semester, I didn’t experience the summer heat. The weather is dry in Texas in general.
Part 3 - Items to Bring and Contacts
The most important thing is visa and registration documents. The UTA exchange program coordinator will provide very clear instruction on it. Apart from that, bring a few thick clothes for winter. Although Austin’s winter won’t be very cold, you may need them if you travel to other state. You should also bring suit in case of formal occasions.
Contact is very assessable for UTA. Throughout the exchange programme, I find it very easy to ask questions and contact staff of UTA Exchange Coordinator.
