Rice University

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Hallmarks and Quirks

Things I'm Good At:

Baseball. My team has been to the College World Series seven times since 1997 and won the national championship in 2003. I've also sent more than twenty players to the major leagues, including six-time All-Star Lance Berkman.
Engineering. Especially biomedical, computer, and electrical engineering. Having a lot of engineers around is great, especially when you want to play a practical joke on someone.
Music. My Shepherd School of Music is currently building a new 600-seat opera house. Why go downtown when you can see great concerts right on campus?
Architecture. I'm kinda big on building things.
Value. My students' annual expenses are on average about $7,000 less than those of my Ivy League colleagues. Imagine how much ramen noodles you could buy with that.
Wacky creativity. The kind that would make someone mount 250 singing fish on a car.

My Top 5 Must-Haves:

A car. Or a friend with a car. Or a ZipCar membership. Houston's a…sprawling city, and unfortunately it's just hard to get many places without one.
Shorts. It's going to be sixty-six degrees in February, so you might as well take advantage of it.
A sense of humor. I may be top-notch academically, but I try not to take myself too seriously.
A fondness for Mexican food. There's tons of it down here.
Anti-perspirant. You don't know what humidity is until you've been to Houston.

Why You Might Have Heard of Me:

President Kennedy gave his "we choose to go to the moon" speech in my football stadium.
Buckyballs (the molecules, not the toys that harm children) were discovered here, and won two of my professors Nobel Prizes.
I'm one of only two American universities that Times placed on the "Top 100 International Universities," ranked for having meaningful international impact on the world.

On a regular Saturday night, you can find me...

There's plenty to do on campus. Each residential college throws at least one big, open-to-all party each year. That means plenty of opportunities to party down. There are also plenty of shows by student groups, from theater to a cappella to improv comedy. Oh, and the music school is almost always putting on some performance or another.

Not that there isn't plenty to do off campus, of course. Houston is a huge city, with just about anything you could want to do. There's a particularly high concentration of great restaurants—Mexican, Chinese, Thai, you name it. Some places are even open twenty-four hours. So if I get a midnight craving, I can always pop over to TC (that's short for Taco Cabana) or the House of Pies.

Favorite Hangouts:

Willy's Pub. That's right, I have our my pub right on campus. It's occasionally rented out by residential colleges or student groups for happy hour events.
The House of Pies. Most any kind of pie you can think of (and other food, too), available 24/7.
Lyle's, a.k.a. the Lovett Undergrounds, a combination bar/performance space in the basement of one of the residential colleges. This place hosts shows by various student groups.
The Rice Coffeehouse. It's entirely student-run and delicious.
Any of the residential college commons, whether it's to see a college theater performance or just to play foosball before chilling in front of the TV.

Quirks:

All students are on the honor code. This means that most exams are unproctored, and some courses even offer take-home exams that you complete on your own time. Students, in turn, pledge to abide by the rules of the test (time limits, not consulting certain books). The Honor Council, a group composed of and elected by students, determines penalties for infractions. We take our honor seriously.
Beer Bike, a combination bike race/chugging contest between the residential colleges, is held once a year. It may sound like a terrible idea, but it's all in good fun and properly supervised.
There's also Baker 13, a twice-monthly nighttime run around campus…while wearing nothing but shaving cream.

Famous Alumni:

Lance Berkman, six-time MLB All-Star
Larry McMurtry, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, co-wrote the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain
Steve Jackson, founder of Steve Jackson Games, designer of the Munchkin series, among others
Annise Parker, Houston's second woman and first openly gay mayor
David Eagleman, neuroscientist and best-selling author