Good News For Grads: Better Job Prospects — And A Discount On Life Membership

By Lynn Freehill in Blog on December 6, 2010 at 12:10 pm | No Comments

I launched the holiday party circuit this weekend, but nowhere did I work my vocal chords as hard — or get as many warm-fuzzies — as at the Great Texas Exit here in the Alumni Center.

The early word is that job prospects have improved for UT grads. And at our commencement open house, everybody was happy. Graduates, family, friends, Bevo, Hook ’em, the volunteers pouring champagne, and the staffers signing people up for Texas Exes Life Memberships (like me).

Lots of people marched right up, having heard that the normally $750 Life Membership was being discounted to $550 over commencement weekend. Awards and events director Whitney Airaudi signed an entire family of five up for life, bam bam bam.

The new grad in the family had already landed a job. “They were happy about that,” Airaudi says.

You’d think our sign-up job would be a cinch. But I still got a verbal workout as I tried to explain ALL the benefits of Exes membership. We have a brochure listing no fewer than 28 benefits, and here I had to rattle ’em off in two minutes or less.

Usually I started with location. Staying in Austin? The football tailgate access (which provides the closest beer and burgers to the stadium) can’t be beat. Moving away from Austin? Texas Exes Chapters definitely help in making friends and networking for jobs in new cities.

Access to UT Libraries, career coaching, online newsletters and directories, and discounts, discounts, discounts apply to everyone.

And then there’s my favorite benefit: receiving The Alcalde magazine. (Okay, okay, I’m one of its editors. I’m biased. But hey, lots of people agreed!)

I kept telling everyone that the $550 life rate would end Sunday at midnight, and now I feel a little guilty — it didn’t. It’s being extended now through Dec. 30.

So. If you’re graduating or supporting a graduate and we told you that you only had until midnight, our apologies! You’ve still got a chance. (Yes, everybody gets a free one-year Dean’s Gift membership, but you’re planning to live more than a year, right? Life Membership will stick with you even if you live to 100.)

And for the rest of you, join up too!