Welcome back to “So You Don’t Want To Live On The Street: UT Dallas,” the only game show where you pay us! I’m your host, Utena T. Daniels. Tonight, the stakes are high and the rent is even higher. Will our contestants secure a place on the UTD campus, or will they hang their heads in shame as they prepare to commute from their parents’ houses for the next year? Find out tonight on “So You Don’t Want To Live On The Street?” But first, let’s take a look at all of this year’s fabulous prizes! 

Residence Halls 

The first stop for any freshmen seeking to live on campus is the residence halls! Located in 5 buildings tucked away in the furthest corner of campus, a spot here may seem affordable, but watch out! Living in the residence halls requires our young contestants also to get a meal plan, giving them access to delicious food for no further cost. Well, edible food anyway. Most of the time. Depending on the week. It’s covered by the meal plan, and that’s what matters, right folks? Everyone knows college kids are too worried about keeping that GPA up to care about what they’re eating anyway. For parents, rest easy knowing your child is under the careful eye of  peer advisors who will work to foster a connection between your child and the rest of their floor to ensure no student is isolated. Sure, plenty of students have never shared a wall with anyone, and may need time to adjust their volume level, but that’s why our peer advisors are around — to ensure everyone is a respectful neighbor. With no cold water in some showers, freshmen won’t have to worry about too-cold showers when they just need to get going — flip between uncomfortably warm and scalding at your leisure. The freshmen dorms are the perfect place for you to start your college career! 

Canyon Creek 

Canyon Creek is one of two on-campus options available to students as dorm-style furnished apartments. Here, those UTD-goers who want to get their degrees and get out can thrive in a pleasantly sterile environment. Furnished with a kitchen in each dorm but no washer/dryer unit, the joys of cooking are more than enough to make up for the awkwardness of dropping your lingerie in the packed elevator as you bring your laundry down to the first-floor washer/dryers. It may not be prime real estate, located at the far edge of the UTD campus past the rarely-used athletic fields, but the 30-minute walk to campus provides students with the ability to stop and enjoy nature as they head to their classes. And sure, you may end up rooming with a freshman due to overflow in the residence halls, but their fresh perspectives on UTD can be refreshing, compared to those who have been overly exposed to the soul-sucking nature of university life. Canyon Creek is — more than every other living space on campus — concerned with your safety. And yeah, scan-ins at every point from entering the building to entering the elevator can be inconvenient for groceries or carrying anything up, but you’ll be thankful eventually, right? And the fire alarm may be on a hairpin trigger and force you outside at 3 A.M. because someone burned their popcorn, but, um, the fresh air is good for you? Point is, Canyon Creek is one of UTD’s finest offerings, and our contestants would be lucky to live here! 

University Village

Our other on-campus option is University Village, with garden-style apartments. Our contestants better act fast, because this semester, University Village sold out as soon as in a month — wait, no, I’m getting word from our producers. Better get while the getting’s good, folks! Taking up a third of UTD’s campus but housing less than 10%, this prize puts you in the elite of UTD — those that actually live here! For those leaving the residence halls and Canyon Creek, the convenience of these apartment-style dorms will be a refresher, even if it puts you at greater risk of a break-in. The expansive, maze-like structure of UV ensures fantastic people watching as you watch lost, drunk frat men stumble their way home at 2 A.M., provided you can deal with the smell in the morning. 

And despite the- okay, no. Get someone on the phone. I’m not- I’m not telling people that the roaches in UV make good pets. That’s not happening. They’re massive! They’re everywhere! You can’t- no, being bigger doesn’t make them easier to put a leash on, it makes them more 

efficient death machines. Telling someone otherwise is inhumane. This whole thing is inhumane! I’m not doing this! 

Northside 

Northside is for the poor, damned souls who came from somewhere outside DFW but also couldn’t find on-campus housing. No one goes to Northside, they end up at Northside, because it may not be nice, clean, or affordable, but it definitely is somewhere to live! There’s a roof over your head! Usually! It’s right off-campus, so you too can pay rent like you’re living in Manhattan complete with random price gouging for people who have basically nowhere else to go. And just like Manhattan, Northside’s most prominent residents are the rats! Literal, and metaphorical, because not only is Northside infested to the point that half of the cords and wires of anyone who lives there will be chewed through before you can say “hellscape,” everyone you’ve ever met has a terrible ex who lives at Northside, so prepare to make awkward eye contact with the guy you met once while they were together who you know for a fact has committed multiple felonies. With a trash service that only comes once a week if you’re lucky, watch in horror as trash piles up outside your neighbor’s door, then realize in horror when your own trash fills up with days to go until the trash guys get there that you too have to join the hordes of trashbags giving Northside its distinct aroma. Enjoy fun new philosophical experiences at 4 A.M. when you’re still awake because your neighbor’s “chill kickback” is blasting Pitbull through the walls, realizing that oh, wait, this is hell actually! Open up your laptop to try to find somewhere, anywhere else to live, and find: 

Future Housing 

Thank God, I- you say. UTD has purchased massive swaths of land, which must be to build new and improved housing. You can see it now. Cute apartments, functioning card swipe systems, convenient, on-call pest control. Fun neighbors you can get coffee with. Finally. You scroll, looking for a date to start construction, only to realize. The new land bought — which destroyed some of the already in high-demand parking spaces — is for an art museum. An ART MUSEUM, you might say? After suffering months of hearing roommates argue with their boyfriends through thin walls, after years of University Village as a whole, after eating at the dining hall willingly? Not only does UTD not see a need to change their housing system, but they’re also taking up nearby land that could be a non-university complex to build an art museum. Now, there are a lot of things one could do with this information. One could call their parents, and ask to commute next year. One could rip their hair out and scream. Or, one could, hypothetically, reach out to official UTD housing. They could offer to make a cute promotional video for UTD housing about the housing on campus in the format of a game show. They could spend months infiltrating the system, finding personal information, and gaining the trust of the top dogs until the day the video comes out. And then they could, hypothetically, use the personal information they’ve found to politely request to the housing committee that maybe, just maybe, it would be in their best interest to change the purpose of that new land if they want to see their pets again. Hypothetically. 

You have 24 hours, Kevin. Make them count.