I’ll add to the chorus of “try the dorms for a year.” I’m a UT senior, and I spent my freshman year in a private dorm just off campus. The rules were a lot laxer than the university dorms, and I still got the experiences with fun people, an annoying suitemate, and bad food. The only thing I really missed about the dorm was having lunch ready when I got home from class.
I lived two years in a student-living complex on Riverside, with three or four roommates. I enjoyed having a pool and a tennis court and a barbecue pit and all the little extras the complex featured. As in a dorm, the quality of life is largely dependent on the people around you. My building was fairly quiet, but my boyfriend’s was filled with people who liked to throw long, noisy parties, blast their stereos at six in the morning and pull fire alarms. YMMV.
The shuttle out to school was packed in the morning, but the rest of the time it was fine. As Sapphire Bulletmentioned, a lot of the student living places offer individual leases, so each person pays their own rent and doesn’t have to worry about whether roommates do.