For an incoming Honors Freshman, are all of these available? Is any one hall better than the other?

They are all modular layout. Honestly, my son was in honors and was in lechner. He hated it and looking back I think he would of been much better off on southside/commons.

Thanks for the info. That is a little discouraging... I sure hope other people give me more input...

What are some of your questions? They are all next to each other on NS. Thus location isn't an issue. They all are close to freshman issued parking too.

Depends on what type of Honors student the student is...its good for those who fit the term "lechnerd", but not so much otherwise.

Would it be best for him to live closer to where most of his classes would be? If so, does anyone have any good suggestions?


[This message has been edited by Notafraid (edited 3/31/2010 11:19p).]

Excluding school, what are some of your son's favorite activities? If he likes football, baseball, basketball, intramurals, ultimate frisbee, etc, the honors dorms are not the place for him. You will find that regardless of where he lives, he will be spending most of his time in Zachry and the other EE library nooks. The thing my son hated about the honors dorms was the attitude of most of the students. They were not inclusive and held an air of superiority that really bugged him. Btwn questionable hygiene by some on his floor and the lack of campus participation and honestly ostracism by the other students on campus (lechnerd moniker) he decided to move into the commons his second semester and loved it. After he moved into something more "personal" haha on SS he didnt think the modulars were the way to experience your freshman year.

[This message has been edited by nnichols (edited 3/30/2010 8:13a).]

I think he is not going to stay in one of the honors dorms. I think he would like basketball, and ultimate frisbee

[This message has been edited by Notafraid (edited 3/30/2010 9:26a).]

Notafraid, please send me an email: erin-at-aphonors-dot-tamu-dot-edu

I work with Honors Programs on campus and help answer your questions about our three honors dorms.

Students should remember that dorm life is what you make of it. Whether you are SS, NS, or in an honors dorm, there are activities available to participate in. If you choose not to limit yourself to a social life in your own dorm, you will find that there are plenty of activities and events to keep you occupied on whichever side of campus that you choose to reside on.

The engineering LC in Mosher is a good program to be involved in and should be considered if a student does not particularly want honors housing. FWIW engineering students that live in honors housing will find that there are MANY other engineering students that live in McFadden|Lechner and are taking the same freshman engineering classes.

Remember, the deadline to apply for honors housing is 4/1.
http://honors.tamu.edu/community/Honors_Housing.shtml

I lived in Lechner my Freshman year and I'm an SA this year. I am not your standard "nerd" as I love sports and am not a huge electronics geek. I'm not in engineering but an overwhelming number of the fish are. They are some of the brightest kids I've seen and can help your son with his work.

Generally, the majority by far enjoys Lechner and nnichols' son is in the minority of kids who don't enjoy Lechner.

I will say this. Northside is huge on tradition with eating dinner together, attending athletic events together and other things. I love Northside and Lechner and I'm really glad I have lived there. Also it is a very nice dorm and a lot of room. And any problems with his room would he fixed pretty quickly.

I did notice that if he were to live some place like Mosher, he would have to share a bathroom with 3 other guys, and if he here in an honors dorm it would just be with 1 other person. From my perspective, that seems like a significant dorm room perk.

I'm a freshman here at A&M and could've stayed in the honors dorms, but I decided to live in Mosher in the ELLC. I've made some friends in the dorm but like fiskies said, its all about getting involved. A&M has 800+ student organizations, so your son is bound to find something he's interested in. I've joined a few clubs here and thats how I've met some of my best friends.

The honors dorms are bigger, but in the commons you still just share the room with one person. You share a bathroom with the guys next door, but technically you're still just living with one person. I liked the commons because it was relatively close to most of my classes and I ended up meeting a bunch of other people who lived near me.

You can't go wrong either way, but speaking from my experience I believe I made a good decision to live in Mosher.

"I'll coach 'em better, and we'll get better. Our day's coming." - Mark Turgeon

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Generally, the majority by far enjoys Lechner and nnichols' son is in the minority of kids who don't enjoy Lechner.

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This is very accurate. I lived in Lechner as a fish and 3 of my closest friends were SAs and then RAs in the dorm. It was an awesome experience - and has tons of upside. Fiskes is right. Dorm life is what you make of it.

I was part of Lechner XV, and honestly my biggest regret of freshmen year is that I didn't really do enough stuff with the folks in the dorm. My best friends from college are folks who were also in lechner that year, but I didn't meet them till a couple years later in the upper level Aero classes.

living on campus ever.

I was in Lechner II. We had a red pot (the next year, I think), and we won the all-university intramural title. I think I played 18 sports. I liked living there. People were involved in stuff.

I lived in Clements the next year. It wasn't honors then. On one side of the hallway, the rooms were a lot shorter. I heard they built the modules, forgot to allow for a central hallway, and had to saw 6 feet off all the modules to make the buildng fit.

[This message has been edited by 94chem (edited 5/3/2010 1:34p).]

Lived in McFadden before it was honors had the opportunity to live in Lechner but when I went on a tour the smell of the whole hall made me want to wretch. Unless the university has mandated at least biweekly showers for the residents don't live with them! Other modular style dorms don't smell and will have all the same benefits if you want to hang out with those people have them come to you or go to them.

Lechner XX here. I wasn't a "Lechnerd" (actually was part of the group I later found out was known as stealth nerds) but still made some awesome friends and really really enjoyed my time in lechner.

Good location, bigger rooms, and nice people. Lechner>commons.

The two people I know closely who lived in the commons did not have the best experiences (not that individual experiences are all that indicative). One lived on a corner on the first floor of Krueger and at the end of the year had her bathroom flooded with raw sewage due to a clogged pipe. Other lived in mosher and his roommate decided to fornicate with his (the roommate, not my buddy) gf while my buddy was in the room. Roommate thought my buddy was asleep.

Lived in Clements my first semester. I don't recommend it.

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Other lived in mosher and his roommate decided to fornicate with his (the roommate, not my buddy) gf while my buddy was in the room. Roommate thought my buddy was asleep.

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There is a decent chance that's going to happen in any dorm, or offcampus apartment.

Lived in Lechner...

The thing with Lechner is that you "must" be involved with the dorm. If you're not involved you'll probably hate it. The dorm participates in a lot of activities and everyone i met there was friendly. However, those people I knew there that didn't participate generally didn't like it.

Wouldn't Recommend Clements... the people I met from there were a little anti-social.

McFadden is nice. However, it is essentially a regular dorm, just a little nicer and on northside.

I would recommend Lechner to everybody if given a chance. I had two roomates from lechner that i lived with till i graduated.

Just because you are honors and or have a huge scholarship doesnt mean that you need to live in an Honors dorm. In fact .. I should have got a clue when the idiots from the Honors Department called me SIX .. yes SIX times asking me what honors dorm I wanted to be in. I told them nicely the first 3 times that I had already rented an apartment and was fine, but the last three times I really asked them what kind of f-in morons they were.

In general that was the case with the whole honors department .. idiots. Because of my scholarship, I had to participate in this Excel program .. it was the most worthless POS ever invented, but the honors department patted themselves on the back about it. The "mentors" worthless, resume padding crap like so many people in majors that have to do stuff like that because their major doesnt bring anything else to the table, like actually ability or knowledge.

The only positive thing about honors is that you should take honors classes, not to graduate with honors, but so that you can register early and get good profs, because in any major that is difficult at all, profs make a world of difference. You couldnt graduate with foundation or university honors when I was in school as an engineer, unless you did a 2nd major in english or some humanities major, but Ive heard that it has changed. Well not really that the curriculum has changed, but rather just that there are now "honors" sections for a lot more engineering courses and of course the majority of the honors students take the best possible prof, honors or not lol .. so the honors sections sit empty.

Have fun at A&M!

[This message has been edited by Randy03 (edited 5/5/2010 1:08p).]

^
what he said. I was Honors my freshman year, and didn't live in the honors dorms. it's not a requirement and your kid may not like it so much. I think someone who likes ultimate would actually prefer one of the other dorms on Northside, maybe McInnis.

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Just because you are honors and or have a huge scholarship doesnt mean that you need to live in an Honors dorm.

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THIS! On-campus living has so much more to offer than just the honors dorms.

I don't want to turn this into a Northside vs. Southside debate, but there's a fundamental difference between the two: Northside is close-knit, while Southside tends to be your sorostitutes and frat daddies that want to party all the time. Just FYI.

Clements absolutely rocks. A lot of them are people who lived in Lechner their freshman year. Either one of those will give you a great experience.

I figured I'd chime in as another former Lechner resident (Lechner XIV, SA - Lechner XV). There are basically 3 categories of people that make up Lechner. First there are the people that are highly involved in the dorm activities, make a lot of friends that they maintain throughout college and beyond, and obviously love their experience (full disclosure, this would include myself). The next group as has already been mentioned is the "stealth nerds". These are the much more introverted residents who are rarely seen outside of their rooms except when going to and from class, hence the moniker. A lot of times they will not enjoy the dorm because of the constant barrage of dorm activities which can get annoying to someone who would rather stay to themselves or a select group of friends. Some do still enjoy their experience (see Garland above). The final group is those who are highly involved in other organizations and activities on campus and have nothing to do with the dorm other than where they sleep at night. These people, more often than not, resent being around so many people that may lack their social aptitude. The biggest issue is when two people from the last two groups get paired up together as roommates. Both usually end up hating each other and their time in the dorm as a result. As far as size of the groups with regard to the typical make up of the dorm Group A > Group B >> Group C.

Another fact that can't be discounted is the learning environment that is fostered in Lechner. Despite my own lack of effort at times, access to old test banks and plenty of intelligent people to study with really helped me out during my time in the dorm.

In the end, like fiskes said, it is all what you make of it.


One other note in response to the sports comment above. There are plenty of athletes in the dorm. More than half of my friends from Lechner were involved in varsity sports in HS. Several people from the dorm played ultimate frisbee weekly and every year we would have an "Old Nerd/New Nerd" football game. We also almost always had a dorm team for each of the intramural sports.