University of North Texas

A public university located in Denton, Texas. It offers undergraduate, master's, and doctoral degrees. It was established in 1890 as Texas Normal College and Teacher Training Institute, a teacher's college, by Joshua C. Chilton, the school's first president. Its first campus was in some rooms above a hardware store on the town square. The school has gone through a number of name changes, including North Texas Normal College, North Texas State Teachers College, and North Texas State University. It became "University of North Texas" in 1988.

UNT is a fairly large school (enrollment of 27,000 students in 2000) with an extremely inefficient bureaucracy and an extremely virulent fraternity system. Education varies from "okey-dokey" to "really bad", depending on what major you get stuck with. The school is probably best known for their jazz program, which is one of the best in the world -- their "lab bands" have even won Grammy Awards.

The dorms tend to be bloody awful, with the exception of Bruce Hall, the oldest but still hippest residence hall on campus. For entertainment, try nearby Fry Street (No more, unfortunately -- Fry Street was gutted out in a short-sighted development plan) or drive to Dallas for bars, or visit the mall or the square for shopping. Drives in the country can also be pretty nice in North Texas...

The largest public music school in the nation, UNT is home to over - supposedly - 20,000 music majors.

Mostly jazz and classical musicians, those that live on campus generally reside in Bruce Hall which is most definitely NOT the best residence hall on campus (the food is almost inedible, and the smoke outside the doors is hell for asthmatics).

The other campus residences are Crumley Hall, Kerr Hall (which has the best - in most people's opinion - cafeteria), Clark Hall (serves junk food all day every day), McConnel Hall (the TAMSter dorm, probably the nicest on campus because they, sadly, baby us), Maple Hall (the hall the REST of the people think has the best food), and Big West Hall (serves the same food as Bruce, but it's strangely edible).

The campus is also well known for it's sciences (not counting the chem lab from hell), being one of very few schools in which all four Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship nominees were rewarded (even MIT didn't get that last year) and being one of the top ten "Wired" schools in the nation with (at my last count) seven T3's for student use.

The athletics program receives recognition as having the SECOND worst football team in the nation (114 out of 115 according to Sports Illustrated).

Overall - Great school for music, but if you expected a real education, you'd best leave.