The University of Texas at Dallas. This is deceiving to all who do not understand where and what “Dallas” is. It is a metroplex, and filled with suburbs, cities and towns that are all labelled as a part of Dallas. Its metroplex is 3.5 times as large as Austin’s. Growing up in Austin, and constantly being told that UT Austin is downtown, I assumed this would apply to UT Dallas. Maybe it is my fault for not looking into location more; maybe it is the purposeful labelling of the school that effectively tricked me. This is one of the smaller problems I have with the school. The overarching issue is the atmosphere of the campus.
In my IB Psychology class, junior year, I learned about cognitive dissonance. Festinger in 1959 performed a memorable study where participants took part in a mindless task for an hour and believed it was for a real psychology study. Participants had the option to…show more content… On a survey after all this was done, those who received one dollar rated the study as more fun and enjoyable compared to those who received twenty. Now, of all the times I have applied this to random scenarios I see, it could not be truer for those who wanted to go to UT Austin but chose UT Dallas instead. A majority of the students I meet that fit my analogy to this study have said the reason they chose UT Dallas was because of cost, but they would also prefer and be happier at UT Austin. These students also are more critical of UT Dallas. School is the task that the students or “participants” need to complete. The students who were given a major discount or even completely free college plus a stipend do not feel