Students come from across the United States and several other countries. Students have an average of 4.5 years of work experience. The School's placement record is excellent for both full-time employment and summer internships. Nearby Hermann Park features hundreds of acres of picnic grounds, a zoo, a golf course, and horseback riding facilities. Houston's symphony, ballet, grand opera, and repertory theater are nationally known performing arts organizations.
Sports fans enjoy the professional baseball, basketball, and hockey clubs based in Houston.
The nation's fourth-largest city, Houston is the headquarters of more than 2,000 major companies, both domestic and international, and is a major center of finance and agribusiness. It is the energy capital of the world and the home of NASA's Johnson Space Center. The University Rice University, a private, nonsectarian, coeducational institution, admitted its first students in 1912. The Jones Graduate School is one of the seven academic units offering undergraduate and graduate study in management, architecture, natural science, engineering, social science, music, and humanities. A low student-faculty ratio ensures that students receive individual attention from their professors.