Jonathan Thomas ’19
Lead Family Ambassador| International Commerce major
As a new student at A&M, adjusting to life on campus in your first semester will come with some difficulties and a lot of questions. What’s the best way to get to all my classes? How much time do I need to ride the bus? Where can I park? What are my dining options? What do all these traditions mean? Not knowing the answers to these questions can often make a student feel under prepared and feel behind in their first few weeks at A&M. That’s why we have the Texas A&M app! The app is free for anyone and was designed for students and all visitors. It was created to access a lot of useful information that makes getting around on campus much easier. Did you know that you can access your NSC schedule through the app as well? To familiarize you a bit more with the app, we’ve made a brief description of the top five features. There are many more features, so be sure to check them all out.
- Maps: Before your classes even begin, you can use the map feature to find the buildings that your classes will be in. You can also use this to navigate buildings for your NSC. To do this, simply click on “Maps,” click on “Interactive Campus Map” on the next screen and then search for the building name or abbreviation for the building you are looking for. The map feature is handy for getting around campus and will help keep you from running late while looking for the right building.
- Bus Routes: If you’ll be taking a bus to campus or just between accessing other areas on campus, click on the “Bus Routes” button and look through the different routes to find the one with a stop nearest to you. You can look along the route to figure out where it stops on campus and how far it is from your destination. After selecting the route that you’ll be taking, click on the clock near the top of the screen to show the arrival and departure times of the bus route.
- Parking: If you miss the bus and you have to drive and park in a visitor parking spot, the app can help with that too! The “Transportation and Parking” button on the home page will take you to a page where you can check live counts on the openings in the garages or you can find parking info with a map showing the paid parking spots on campus. I can’t tell you how many times I was running late for class and went to a garage that was already full, making myself even later. With the app, you can check parking availability and go straight to the garage that has open spaces. This feature is also helpful for visitors to campus trying to find the visitor parking spaces.
- Dining: The dining feature is perfect for when you want to eat on campus. Just click on “Dining” and it you can find all the different options on each part of campus. It shows you which ones are open, their location, their hours of operation, and gives a brief description of each location and what they serve. This app is especially helpful for visitors trying to find a good place to eat on campus and is much faster than searching on google.
- Aggie Traditions: A&M is known throughout the nation for our awesome traditions. The traditions are one of the biggest things that make us unique and as a new student or guest, you’ll definitely want to learn and be involved in them. As we say here in Aggieland, “If you do it twice, it’s tradition.” There’s a lot of them to learn. That’s why we’ve added the “Aggie Traditions” feature to the TAMU app. Using this feature, you can quickly read through the Aggie traditions and immediately take-part in one of the things that makes being an Aggie so great!
The TAMU app is something I use often when I’m on campus. Every student should download it and spend about 15-20 minutes searching through it and familiarize themselves with its features. The app and its features will certainly help you get around campus smoothly and stress-free.
>>Here’s how to make the most of your NSC
