Vanity: Son moving to Waco, TX to attend Baylor as a post-grad Physics(quantum optics)student.

Self | 4/27/2013 | Liege

[bubbacluck]

My son graduated and is moving to Waco, TX in August to pursue his PhD in Physics(quantum optics). He is being paid to be a teaching assistant while studying. We are in the process of helping him look for one bedroom apartments in the Waco area. His politics, when he chooses to express them, are conservative. He does shoot occasionally.

Any locals to the Waco area: Do you have any suggestions as to what to expect? Areas to avoid? We've done a lot of research online but really would appreciate any input from Freepers who actually live there.

Thanks!

[bubbacluck]

I don’t know, but I’d imagine he just received his BS and may also be given an MS on his way to his PhD at Baylor.

You would be correct. I hope I didn't imply he'd earned a Masters at 21.

[Seizethecarp]

IIRC, the grasslands will be blanketed with gorgeous blue bonnets right about now surrounding Waco and they are particularly abundant all around the Koresh site.

Get up to speed on tornado precautions!
Take in the Dr. Pepper Museum.
Take in the Texas Ranger Museum on the banks of the Brazos.

[9YearLurker]

No, I don’t think you did.

[Arrowhead1952]

I have a buddy who lives in Waco. I’ll email him to get some info for you. Lots of good looking honeys for him to choose as a sweetie too.

[bubbacluck]

I heard that at Baylor the ratio is two girls for every guy.

[BobL]

He’ll be happy to know that the nearest In-and-Out is just over an hour away.

[bubbacluck]

That’s the first thing he checked!

[lonestar]

MEG ....aren’t you in the Waco area?

[BobL]

LOL, you raised a fine boy.

[Intolerant in NJ]

Sheldon moved out of Texas, maybe his mother still has his old room available - might even still be a burned-out old homemade CAT scan machine he could play around with....

[Arrowhead1952]

Don’t know about the girl / boy ratio, but I sent an email to my buddy there and expect a reply sometime tomorrow after church is over.

[Orange1998]

1978 that was long ago in college time. The President of Baylor is drum roll please........Catholic.

[MEG33]

Yes..but I know nothing about apartments here...and I live near Lake Waco..across town from Baylor

[Arrowhead1952]

Here is the reply I got a few minutes ago.

---

“He will need to visit the campus. They have a list of all available apartments and a price range. Girls are everywhere. College girls gone wild.”

[bubbacluck]

Thanks for the reply. He’ll like the girls everywhere part; though not so much gone wild.

[afraidfortherepublic]

You’ve got to be kidding! Isn’t the President of BU Ken Starr? I didn’t think he was Catholic.

I know that the Dean of the Music School was Episopalian and my daughter’s advisor was Jewish. But they were not examples of the student body as a whole. After all, most of Texas was still considered “Mission Territory” in the Catholic Church in 1978.

I just remember that when Baylor finally abandoned their stance against dancing on campus about 20 years ago, the school celebrated with a campus wide dance led by the President of the University, who “cut a fine rug”. People were asking, “Where did he learn to dance?”

[Orange1998]

Oops meant to say Church of Christ but he expected to join a Baptist Church when he moved into town. I was told in the 80’s dancing was not allowed on campus. I tried explaining on the trip there but daughter explained not anymore.

During the tour I asked if you can dance and the guide quickly responded.... Sure! Effectively destroying my previous comments. Good to know it was true at one time.

She was accepted and attended Baylor.

[afraidfortherepublic]

One of the big deals at Baylor when my daughter was there was “Sing!” which was a musical competition between living groups and fraternities. These groups thought up a theme to perform, rented costumes from Broadway, and even imported NY choreographers to refine their acts. Tickets were hard to come by, but our daughter got us 2. We were sitting in the audience when one men’s group was performing a particularly lively version of “Sgt. Pepper’s Band”. I leaned over and said to by husband:

“For a school that does not allow dancing, there’s sure a lot of dancing going on on that stage...” 2 women in front of us whirled around and shot back, “There are no men and no women dancing at the same time!” Later, I learned that those 2 were my daughter’s sorority sisters — 2 who had not made the cut at auditions.

The downside of the “no dancing” rule is that it did not accomplish what it set out to do. The various living groups just moved their dances off campus to hotels in Dallas where they rented rooms and exposed the students to all kinds of other dangers, such as no supervision whatsoever.