22 Things You'll Understand If You Attend or Graduated From UTSA

The squirrels here unlike any others
The bravest damn squirrels you’ve ever seen. Because everyone feeds them, they’ve become pretty tame. They’ll basically take food right from your hand and, if you’re not paying attention or it’s a safe distance from your person, right out from under your nose.
Photo via Instagram / rowdy_squirrels

You will be late to class because of parking
Maybe once. Maybe twice. Maybe even three times — especially if you’ve got class at a peak busy time. That being said, one glorious day, one of your professors will be late because of parking too. The struggle is real.
Photo via Instagram / utsacampusservices

Bean bags are like an unofficial second mascot
Everyone tries to lay up on those bean bags. EVERYONE. You could have five minutes left to get to class and if you see one of those beanbags in the UC vacant, you know you’re gonna sit there just for a little bit, ya nasty.
Photo via Instagram / utsa

You’ll get calves of steel without meaning to
Sometimes you have a class in the Business Building and you’ve got to haul ass all the way to the BSE in 10 minutes just to get stuck with the left-handed desk. Or maybe your schedule means you gotta climb lots of stairs. It be that way sometimes.
Photo via Instagram / utsa

You’ll see a kid you knew in elementary school
UTSA is becoming so large and ubiquitous that you actually have a pretty high chance of running into someone that you’ve known at some point. Even if you went to different high schools, you may recognize a few familiar faces walking around campus.
Photo via Instagram / utsalibraries

You’ll try to meet your friend at the Sombrilla
Somehow, you still won’t be able to find each other. Between two floors, the giant fountain, the occasional demonstration or fair, and about a million other people trying to find their own friends, you never had a chance. The other side of this coin is that you’ll inevitably run into someone you definitely don’t want to see. You win some, you lose some.
Photo via Instagram / ethemudo

Someone will try to hand you the Paisano
And you’ll dodge that mess like the plague. Don’t @ us.
Photo via Instagram / paisanomedia

The UTSA/Texas State rivalry is real
I once saw a bar fight between a Roadrunner and a Bobcat. Except they were dudes. And they beat each other up. Nowadays, the rivalry is mostly Twitter meme-based as of late, which is a thousand times more clever and funny — and nobody has to go to jail!
Photo via Twitter / DCesarAugustine

You’ll get lost
You don’t even have to be high AF. Sometimes you’ll enter a building on the ground floor and come out across campus on the other side. We’ve all been there, it doesn’t matter who you are. Now if only you could go in one building and end up in Lot 13…
Photo via Instagram / utsastuact

You’re either obsessed with the football team or completely uninterested
And it’s super easy to tell which side you fall on.
Photo via Instagram / utsaathletics

You don’t go to UTSA — you end up there
UTSA has been through many degrees of prestige. At first, it was like the chill commuter school. Then it was the place for people who needed to take some cheaper classes before going to the university they wanted to graduate from. Then it was the place you went when you didn’t get into your first choice. Now, it’s transitioning to an actual well-known university. Like, people actually go there on purpose. Like, from out of state and everything.
Photo via Instagram / utsa

You tried to climb the rock wall in the Rec Center during Orientation
Don’t lie — you tried climbing the rock wall in the rec to impress that cutie in your orientation group. Those other guys made it look so easy.
Photo via Instagram / utsarockclimbing

Graduation takes FIVEever
It’s a special day that you invite your whole family down to attend your graduation. You need to get there like two hours earlier than your family on top of the three- to four-hour long ceremony. All to get your name mispronounced, receive a fake degree placeholder while your real one comes months later in the mail, take the least flattering picture that’s ever been taken of you, and to be alone onstage for all of about four seconds.
Photo via Instagram / cre8ad8

The Alumni Association won’t leave you alone
When they give you your free year of being in the UTSA Alumni Association when you graduate, you’d be crazy not to join — especially if you graduate without having a job lined up. Just be prepared for the students who will call you — sometimes even after business hours — to ask if you’d like to make a small donation to the university that took all your money in the first place. I’m looking at you, kid who keeps calling at like 8 p.m.
Photo via Instagram / rabidmeerkat

Students are literally of all ages here
The kid on your left might be a kid so young that you wonder if they’re even old enough to be enrolled in college and the person on your right might be on their second career. The bag, especially in upper-level classes, can be so mixed when it comes to age ranges. That is how the UTSA do.
Photo via Instagram / utsa

The cell service is absolutely horrendous
Between the varying degrees of elevation on campus and actual buildings made of concrete and brick, it can be pretty difficult to find a signal. You’re marginally better off using the school wifi.
Photo via Shutterstock

First-generation students have a lot of pride — as they should
There’s a lot of well-deserved pride for first-generation college attendees and especially first-gen college graduates. UTSA takes a lot of pride in being a university rooted heavily in the community of San Antonio.
Photo via Instagram / rhondagphd

Orientation Leaders are SO extra
More commonly referred to as OLs, orientation leaders are basically the people who volunteer to shepherd the fishies around campus for orientation-related activities. In trying to be ultra hip and cool, these juniors and sometimes seniors end up doing the absolute mostest for their group of young peers. This includes telling embarrassing stories at their own expense or the expense of their buddies, taking dares, and, worst of all, interacting with the freshmen.
Photo via Instagram / utsacampusservices

There are very few actual roadrunners on campus
Seeing an actual roadrunner on campus is kind of like a unicorn. Nuff said.
Photo via Instagram / utsa_arc

Being broke is inevitable at some point
Remember — being broke is temporary as long as you can make money using your degree. Though UTSA is nowhere near one of the most expensive universities to attend, it’s still expensive for a lot of people. Luckily, there are a lot of need- and scholastic-based scholarships and grants available as well as resources on campus like payment plans and free textbook rentals. That doesn’t mean you won’t be broke like 75% of the time, it just means that you’ll be in marginally less debt than people who attend more expensive colleges.
Photo via Shutterstock