guide to UT: coffee addition
I've been out of college for almost four months, so I'm obviously an expert. Four months equals about 120 days (right?) which is plenty of time to reflect and absorb all the lessons I learned in the last four years.
So for those of you still in the trenches (and I number myself among you because from what I can tell grad school is just like college except the loans are in my name and people use the phrase “grad school isn't like college” a lot) I'm gonna occasionally post about stuff I've learned. This one is about studying in coffee shops.
Spoiler alert: The secret to studying is, find a wicked coffee shop. Let me explain...
Coffee shops are abundant in Austin. Why you ask? Because the most frequent coffee shop patrons are hipsters and students. And what is Austin but a town made of hipsters and students? (And politicians, but we all know they go to Starbucks.) This is good news for the Longhorn population because coffee shops are where you should be studying, and let me emphasize that by saying, but seriously for real. Coffee shops are far superior to libraries because for those of us that haven't been quiet since 1989, sometimes it's hard to not make noise in the library. I personally can't handle the hateful eyes of 40 pre-med students while I noisily unwrap my Rice Crispie treat in the PCL. Coffee shops have a built-in back ground noise of indie music, humming espresso machines, and clinking mugs, so the occasional low-decibel conversation or Crispie treat unwrapping is totally acceptable.
I know what you're thinking cheapos, “Madison, why should I go buy coffee at a coffee shop when I could easily make coffee and study in my house/dorm/apartment/dormpartment?” Well the answer is COMMITMENT. If you are using your American dollars to buy coffee at a coffee shop you are COMMITED TO LEARNING. If you are drinking free coffee in your Snuggie while you watch reruns of Pretty Little Liars with your Biology book open in your lap, you are NOT COMMITED TO LEARNING. Studying in your home is too easy. You gotta get out of there and study in the world where science and history are currently happening.
Now that you understand coffee shops are the only place where studying can truly occur, you have to decide which shop is best for you. Austin tends to go in two directions with its coffee shop options. The first is the minimalist, clean, urban-style coffee shop such as Progress, Monkey's Nest, or Flightpath. Which is fine. I mean, fine if you want to pretend you are studying in a trendy downtown medical clinic lobby while you wait for your bloodwork to come back. Coffee shops like this usually play current indie music, which stresses me out because I don't recognize it and therefore feel uncool. And there's little worse in this world than feeling uncool while you try to memorize the cranial nerves.
The second and far superior option is the old-timey hoarder-style coffee shop. This style holds a special place in my heart. The more the coffee shop looks like an senile 80-year-old art collector's moldy basement the more I like it. Places like this play old music from the 30s-50s and also Mumford and Sons. And because I was a weird, lonely child who frequently bought cassette tapes of radio shows from the early forties, I feel particularly at home while visiting these types of shops. The best of this second option include Dolce Vita, Bennu, Tazza Fresca, and Epoch. My favorite of all time is Tazza Fresca, because the service is laughable and there's never enough seating. And as a customer, I like to feel like the places I buy from don't appreciate me or need my money.
So once you've picked your place you have to set rules for yourself such as 1) I will stay here for 4 hours or 2) I will not look at facebook this whole time or 3) I get a chai latte every time I can name the Supreme Court Justices from memory (hint: Sally Bought Aaron Kites That Soared Really Keenly Good (Sotomayer, Breyer, Alito, Kagan, Thomas, Scalia, Roberts, Kennedy, Ginsberg.) Once you have your location and rules in place you are set for the most successful night of studying ever. (As long as you don't run into any friends.)
