Howdy folks,
In regards to this exchange:

A&M is also an excellent school, and has been rated by Texas Monthly
magazine as the "best value in higher education in Texas."

Yeah. That's why we used to call it "Harvard on the Brazos."

Seriously, it is in every sense of the word a major university with
enrollment and national standing comparable to UT. Many of the
departments, schools, and programs are world class, and not just in
agriculture. We will forgive the maroon carrots.

Elliot Richmond
Class of '64

Elliot Richmond
Freelance Science Writer and Editor

I have high regard for Texas A&M having worked for and with a
number of it's graduates. In addition my daughter went to a Science
summer camp run by the women's engineering society which was a great
experience.
This reminded me of an experience last fall, when I was doing a
volunteer gardening gig at an African-American charter school on the
East side. A bunch of sharp kids, some of them started asking about
what college they should go to if they were interested in horticulture
and I started telling them about A&M. One of the kids started up with
the usual Austin BS about Aggies, which gave me the chance for a
digression into the historical background for the UT-Aggie rivalry.
I explained that it was an old class distinction, farmers kids went
to A&M and the kids from the merchant class went to UT. I told them
that the rivalry was just antiquated class warfare, and shouldn't be
taken seriously outside of a football stadium. I also told them they
should do a history check and a check on themselves anytime they found
themselves buying into these sort of social group think situations.
These sort of 'rivalries' can liven up a football game, but it's
not the way to make major decisions about your college career. If you
want to study Linquistics I would pick UT, if you want to study
Horticulture I'd pick A&M.

One more thing about A&M, a couple of years ago I got to play
against members of the A&M chess team in their tournament to get
ready for the College Championships. We had a lot of fun and a few
weeks later they beat the UT team in Chess, which I'm sure more than
made up for losing their annual football game that season. My one
disapointment was that when I asked for a show of hands who were
Agriculture students and who were engineering students, every single
one was in the engineering section. No Hort's to be seen.
take care,
Steve Coyle
www.austingardencenter.com

By the way the Texas A&M chess team put an exiting action photo of the
final round of the sporting event on their web site. I'm the guy on
the right.
You can see it at:
http://stuact.tamu.edu/stuorgs/chessclub/chess3.jpg