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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 31, 1987)
k ROTHER’S . . BOOKSTORES Complete Line of Used Books 340 Jersey (across frocntJniv. Police) 901 Harvey (Woodstone Center) Page 2D/The Battalion/Monday, August 31, 1987 NOW 2 LOCATIONS Northgate n (across from Post Office)' Redmond Terrace (next to Academy) YOUR TEXTBOOK HEADQUARTERS WELCOME. HOME AGGIES STUDENT CHECKING -NO MINIMUM BALANCE. NO MONTHLY SERVICE CHARGE. 711 University Drive '••• ' C'»| It*in* Station Texas on initial visit 50% Discount Parkway Medical Clinic Always 20% Ostial Student Discount 10% Clsual Faculty and Employee Discount 2305 A S. Texas Ave. College Station, Tx. 8 a.m.-8 p.m. Mon.-Sat. Student ID Required ■ ■■coupon ■■■■■■■■■■I COMPLETE MEDICAL CARE MINOR EMERGENCIES Special Services and Facilities Yearly Check & Pap Smear $40 00 Your Allergy Injection $3°° Aids, Herpers and Special Testing Sullivan’s Outfitters 3602 Old College Rd., Bryan 260-9831 “Under The Moose” ★ Never a sale-Just the lowest prices around 'Ar Bird season begins Sept. 1 Get your equipment ready now ★ Gun storage for Aggies You can’t keep them on campus so let us store them for you $20-per semester ★ Mention This Ad and get 10% off purchase ★ 90 Day Lay-Away No interset charge ★ We carry: Browning, Winchester, Mossberg, Smith & Wesson Remington, & more Spark Some Interest! Use the Battalion Classifieds. Call 845-2611 Freshmen in for some changes during college career at A&M By Hal Hammons Staff Writer When I was but a lad, fresh out of high school and about to begin my collegiate career at Texas A&M, my father told me the next four years were going to be the best of my life. Good old Dad had been out of school for some time. Granted, I have had a ball for the first three years, and I expect it to Realizing the differences be tween college and high school is of tantamount importance if you are to survive the next four to nine years, depending on your dedica tion and/or intelligence. And the most important realization is that once you apply for college admis sion and are accepted, your high you was think the truth, your but rather to and develop on your own conclusions. And even with that encouragement, you, like me, will find yourself asking your English professor, “But what do you think it means?” Perhaps the most important les son in the long run is responsibility. Viewpoint get better as I am now a senior | (whoop!). But it is not all fun and games. If you are an incoming fresh man, this column is for you. It is my responsibility to help initiate you into the ways of college life, and I will attempt to do so. You have made a significant step forward in the echelon of life. You see, there are three brands of peo ple in our culture: Little People, College People and Real People. You are now the second of these in stead of the first. Becoming one of the College People is the first step toward becoming one of the Real People. You have made that step. Congratulations. Enjoy your stay while you are here. Unfortunately, I have some bad news — it’s tough. Really tough. Most of you probably are a lot like me. I didn’t work very hard at all in high school. No, scratch that; I didn’t work at all. It is probably in my nature to ac cept a B that I don’t have to study for instead of studying a couple of hours a night for an A. I never have taken school work very seriously, and high school didn’t help any. I suppose that I thought college would oe the same, or at least simi lar. OK, maybe it would be a little harder, but I was only taking five classes (plus labs), and those only met two or three times a week. Plenty of time to goof off, plenty of time to catch up. Piece of cake. Needless to say, I was disap pointed. And I continue to be dis appointed. I still don’t study as much as I probably should (certainly not as much as my parents think I should), but I’m getting by better than most. _ _ - Realizing the differences between college and high school is of tantamount importance if you are to sur vive the next four to nine years, depending on your dedication and/or intelligence. school diploma might as well be thrown out the window. Nobody cares anymore. It could very well be that your school’s Joe Superjock, who made all-district three years in a row, could not make the 12th Man team here. The same concept applies for regular students. Consider yourself lucky if you really learned anything worthwhile at all in high school. I learned how to write good essay answers because of my excellent high school English teachers. I learned basic algebraic and calculus concepts that helped get me through my required math courses. And I learned some sci ence — maybe. That’s about it. One of the first things you will learn in college is the vast majority of your earlier teachers basically didn’t know what they were talking about. But, hey, I could have guessed that as a 16-year-old ju nior. You also will, in all likelihood, be introduced to a concept rather un known in lower education: think ing. Students in college, for the most part, have to decide for them selves what material is important enough to merit extra study time. As freshmen, you will be forced to learn how to answer the two uld- mate questions in the universe: “Why?” and “So what?” Each in volves thinking on your feet, a ne cessity of life and one that is vir tually ignored below the college level. Professors, at least the good ones in liberal arts courses, will encour age you to not repeat what they told For most of you, this is the first time you will be away from home for any period of time. Your time is literally your own, and you may do with it as you like as long as you don’t have to count on your parents to supply any bail money. Eventually you will be struck by the Skip Class Bug. When it hap pens, don’t worry. It has struck ev ery college student who has ever had to wake up for an 8 a.m. class or attend one on Friday afternoon. The trick is to determine for yourself the optimum number of days in each class to ditch. This can run anywhere from zero for most lab courses to 20 or 25 for a valedic torian in Rocks for Jocks (Geology 103). My roommate my first two years here had it down to an art. While taking Economics 203 and 204, he attended class a grand total of 11 times. Including tests. Including fi nals. Including days when he was only there to pick up a syllabus. The way I calculate it, that’s 1 1 days in class out of about 62 class meet ings. He got a B and a C. Slimeball. There are plenty of alternative ways to spend time and effort, even in College Station. Various social encounters can easily deplete your available study time. That’s not necessarily bad. In deed, I would be something of a hypocrite if I told you otherwise. But I have my priorities set. I know how important school is to me. And you need to know as well, regard less of how important that may be. If you decide that getting a date every Friday night, partying every Off-Campus Center informs students of rights as tenants By Jill Radenbaugh Reporter New leases, new deposits and new landlords are just a few things new tenants will be facing this fall. Kristin Sayre, coordinator of the Off-Campus Center, says students should be informed about their ba sic rights and responsibilities as a tenant. The Off-Campus Center strives to educate students in this area, Sayre says. To provide students with current information, the staff consults regu larly with student legal advisers, Sayre says. The Students’ Legal De partment, 359 Bizzell Hall, provides free legal service to all A&M stu dents. Leases seem to be the students’ major concern at the beginning of a semester, she says. A lease is a legally binding con tract between the tenant and land lord which spells out the conditions under which housing is rented. If either party does not fulfill the lease obligations, the other can take legal action. “It is important that students fully understand their rights and responsibilities as outlined in a lease agreement,” Sayre says. A lease also is a financially bind ing contract, meaning it should be read carefully before signing. Notes that explain the Texas Apartment Association lease, which is commonly used in College Sta tion, are available at the Ofr-Cam- pus Center. lease after the contract is finalized,” she says. When a tenant has a written lease, verbal agreements between the tenant and landlord usually are impossible to enforce, she says. Therefore, any oral agreements which add to or change the lease should be written into the lease and initialed by both parties. If a tenant decides to break a lease before it expires, it’s consid ered a breach of contract and the landlord is entitled to damages. “It is incorrect to think that a ten ant forfeits only his security deposit if he breaks a lease,” Sayre says. The judgement is renewable for an other 10 years. Judgments on tenants’ records can prevent them from obtaining loans and credit, Sayre says. Return of security deposits is one possible problem a renter may have, Sayre says. If the tenants have ful filled the conditions of the lease, then the manager is required to re fund the security deposit within 30 days after they vacate. If after 30 days a tenant hasn’t re ceived a deposit, he should contact his manager and try to resolve the situation. If tenants have further questions, they can take the lease to the Off- Campus Center or the student legal advisers before signing it, Sayre says. “Be sure to keep a copy of the A tenant can be sued for the re mainder of the rent. If unable to pay the debt after a suit, for exam ple, judgments can be filed against tenants for 10 years — or until they have adequate financial resources. Apartment Price Averages — Electricity Not Included Saturday night and having a; over every Sunday morninjj way you will spena your yean that’s your decision. If you to study four hours per nig two per afternoon every dayft th< next four years, that is yourt! the I too. p>ok Another crucial decisionyo han make in the next few yearsisd thinl rection you will take in lain malt Many of you have already ; ter. that choice and are forminj«BM curricula around it. But if yj boy one of these, don’t assumetlii read sion is made forever. the ; Increased exposure to college-level courses have tory of effecting drastic chaij®^ the futures of young across the nation. This tmnWy] given rise to one of the mosisfe p ( of collegiate traditions: dii^ ||t majors. . Why is major-changing siiipi/, inseparable part of Joe Colter dent’s career? Nobody: knows. It probably is becaust t| chan and shot and nato; sion: who cord! changes a person s perspecar life. T hose life-long dreamss:||* ( . reer as a doctor or lawril^p quently fade into oblivion .;! person starts finding out whiE|, e take to pursue that career, My brother, who last ytrlppi rolled as a freshman at a hijfc n , insignificant junior colldj^^ downtown Austin, hasdrtar«fc whole life of becoming a v« ian. College biology is altcrJ scope of reality. Hist I had no idea at all of journalist when I first catrrG j was a biology major. ^ , Two years later I wasind^ at , a liberal arts school whicho: ma[e Bachelor of Science degre lQ^g, was required so I wouldnotap^j-jg take any more Spanish. JoirlfoJod happened to fit the bill. Nicti0 determine one’s career, you say? But that’s the way collcgd feet you. No matter whatra into it, no matter what yotJ take out of it, you will nail tie P : * CXJ uve yuui v.uucgc men will, and make your ownc After all, you have fourmotil until you become one of til People. If the problem is still unresolved, Sayre recommends the student con tact the student legal advisers. If a tenant encounters problems with his landlord, he may file a com plaint with the Off-Campus Center and the Bryan-College Station Apartment Association. 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Rother’s 2] Scott & White HL Starship Hallmark ■T Sunshine Cut & Curl f TAMU Bookstore Texas Aggie Bookstore . | \Z Texas Aggie Credit Union 1 ^ Twin City Bargain Furniti4 0ut fcvic< University National Bank r? 111 University Plus | On Wal-Mart Live hcrei Unfurnish ed Range Average Furnished Range Average Efficiency $165-300 $233 Efficiency $195-365 $280 One Bedroom $150-450 $300 One Bedroom $175-450 $303 Two Bedroom (!)★ $175-510 $343 Two Bedroom (!)★ $213-465 $339 Two Bedroom (2)^ $197-600 $399 Two Bedroom (2)^ $275-610 $443 Three Bedroom $310-660 $485 Three Bedroom $453-595 $524 ★ (1) one bathroom, (2) two bathrooms; February 1987 Averages ^ g( gbout | es to tA P the j n d dems direct hce o to spe Th dther don i la t J At r etun «aid ‘veil. r, i take '•ban *T1 taidgf List Compiled by Off-Campus Center