Jester Center

Elite '08

81

216

Carrie C.

Austin, TX

Ahhhhh, Jester Center.  I am only giving Jester 5 stars because I met most of my friends living in Jester and although the place was disgusting and creepy, I have very good memories of my time spent there.  I got away with so much crap living in Jester that should have never been allowed.  No, we weren't drinking beer and playing hallway slip & slide in my communal room, but the staff generally turned a blind eye to a lot of the hijinks my friends and I got up to and that actually helped foster independence  for once in my life and allowed me to make moral judgments on a few occasions.  Then again, they may have been turning a blind eye to our hijinks because Jester only had cameras above the exit doors in 1995-97.

Highlights of living in Jester West (14th and 5th floor):

*Adapting to life with a psycho roommate.
*Awareness that a caterpillar isn't a bug, it's a spice.  The eyes, feet and antenna are special treats and should be savored.
*Cafeteria workers are really nice folks even if the food they serve stinks.
*You can make a person hate a song forever simply by pressing "repeat" on your CD boombox.  
*Football players are better than you and me.  That's why they get filet mignon in Jester East and you and me get salad that tastes like pesticide and the fabled "Grade D" burgers in Jester West.
*If you bring an issue to a figure of authority or try to reason with said figure of authority, prepare to be either ignored, or ignored.
*Always wear your glasses and shower shoes when in the bathroom because that might be poo on the floor.

One last thing - I either failed or almost failed all my classes the two years I lived at Jester.  I got out, moved into an apartment and started making A's and B's.  If you want to have an active social life - this is the dorm for you.  50,000 some odd students go to UT and I figure about 10% of them are trapped somewhere in Jester so you're very likely to meet 5 or 6 you get along with.  Living in Jester, even if it's just for a year, will certainly build your character.  But if you want to actually study and pass your classes, live elsewhere.

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9

133

C T.

Los Angeles, CA

Jester Center is the largest student dormitory on the campus of The University of Texas at Austin.  It houses some 3,000 students in two towers, Jester West and Jester East.  It has two cafeterias, a basketball court, a rec room, a convenience store, a Wendy's, a bakery/coffee bar, computer labs, washers and dryers on every floor, and a smoothie stand.

That being said, if there truly is a Hellmouth on Earth it lies directly beneath Jester Center.

I served my freshman year at The University of Texas in Jester West like a year in prison.  The urban legend says that Jester Center was designed by a guy who made his living designing prisons.  I never cared enough to substantiate these claims; I lived there, I knew it was true.

The rooms are small, dank, dark, dingy, beat-up, and non-conducive to anything remotely related to studying.  The furniture is built-in, so your options are very limited.  For example, your roommate gets there before you and chooses his bed, leaving you with the one by the micro fridge.  Your only options are to either move the fridge to one of two power outlets in the room, either taking up the little space between the two desks or mounted somehow on top of a dresser, or to just leave it where it is.  Leaving it where it is makes for really cozy sleeping conditions: it cuts off about a foot of the width of the pull-out slab that is the bed and rumbles right next to your head.  Pleasant dreams.

When my folks dropped me off at school and walked out that door of my dormitory room, they said they didn't have the heart to tell me how depressing Jester looked to them.  At first, I didn't see it.  I had my "going away to college" blinders on.  When it came time to move out and the shine had long-since worn off, they told me how sorry they were to leave me in such a place.

But, hey, at least I had a room.  If you were unlucky enough to receive an acceptance letter from the Division of Housing & Food that stated you were gifted with "Supplemental Housing," you really got boned.  "Supplemental Housing" is code for: this frigging University is too big, so we have to change a study lounge into something that closely resembles an orphanage, cramming four college kids into one dismal room.

Community showers might sound like a scary ordeal, but on the upside they at least get cleaned everyday.  A shared Jack-and-Jill type bathroom might sound like a good idea, but it doesn't work in practice.  It's something akin to Communism.  You learn that quick when the frat-rejects next door decide to store all of their workout clothes and dirty towels under the sink and never clean anything.  Things can quickly develop into a Cuban missile crisis; each side standing their ground, refusing to clean anything.

Co-ed floors are another thing that seem cool in idea, but fail miserably in real life.  It's not like in the movies where hot girls are having pillow fights across the courtyard.  You'll live next door to a couple frat wannabes who decide to play "Don't Fear The Reaper" on repeat and across the hall from some militant lesbians who like to post a new picture of a destroyed phallic symbol to their door everyday.

Oh, and every floor has its own distinct odor.  Mine, the fourth floor of Jester West, smelled like Mayo.  I guess that comes in handy when stumbling in drunk.  You can stop and think, "Hmm, I must be on 3, 'cause it smells like piss."

I lived in Jester from fall of 1999 to spring 2000 and the food options were very different.  One of the few social outlets that was of any merit at Jester was Jester Late Night on the second floor.  That was until they shut it down for renovation.  The first floor was really heinous; I never before knew that storing hamburger patties in semi-warm bath of mystery water was the preferred form of food preparation.  But you kids today get to miss out on that.  You have to walk all the way to Kinsolving for treatment like that.  Instead, you can stay and eat at the new Jester City Limits and pay for over-priced crappy food that never open late.  Want that specialty Mexican or Chinese for dinner?  Not if you're in class until 8.  They'll be closed.

Jester A121A was the bane of my existence.  The crummiest little auditorium that ever was and ever will be.  Please, please, please don't let a girl talk you into taking a sociology class in A121A because she hears that the prof plays Simpsons clips in class and thinks that it'll be cool.  It's not.  Small, shitty desks that are broken half the time, poor sound system, and to a bigger extent, sociology is for people with no other discernible skills other than the ability to tell you how worthless you are because of how much they loath themselves.

For the love of all that is holy, please do not live at Jester.  Where else then , you ask?  Anywhere.  Try a different dorm to get that "college experience."  I'd suggest San Jacinto next door.  You will thank me later.

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Elite '08

206

458

Susie G.

Austin, TX

Aaaah! Jester! I spent every summer of middle and part of high school living for a few weeks at a time at Jester center. While at the time I thought it was slightly glamorous to be living in a college dorm, In retrospect it was far from it. Dank, dark and far from homey. I have a friend that is an RA here, he said he went straight to the heart of the dormitory system. i think he was trying to make it sound better then it was. Think ahead, live elsewhere.

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7

209

John D.

Round Rock, TX

I lived in Jester one summer for camp and I think it's better suited as a minimum security prison then a college dorm.  I don't know how anyone can be happy about the fact that they ended up living at Jester for any amount of time during college.  

The rooms are small.  The beds are these silly couch/bed things that you can't move around.  The lighting stinks.  The bathrooms are too small (and communal - oh joy).  

Yuck all the way around.

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