There’s something to be said about having pride in your college or university, but I never quite understood how important where you went to school could be until I met my wife. While I attended a state school in New York, she had big plans for her college career after finding out that she got accepted to the University of Texas at Austin as a first-generation college student.
Now, though, my wife works as a high school algebra teacher, where she inspires students with similar backgrounds to get accepted into their dream schools. To help her remember how far she’s come while living up to UT Austin’s motto that “What Starts Here Changes The World”, I decided to completely redo her home workspace with a little help from Uplift Desk.
Given that I test the best standing desks for a living, there’s no shortage of desks around my house. However, once I’m finished reviewing a desk and need to make space for the next one, I either load it up in my wife’s car or personally deliver it to her school. As a former teacher myself, I know just how difficult it can be for teachers whose schools don’t have big enough budgets to begin with, let alone enough for quality desks and office chairs. That’s why I make it a point to rehome the desks I review with teachers who will put them to good use in their classrooms.
My wife typically starts each school year with a new desk, but this time around, I wanted to put together something special for her that she could use while grading papers at home, though I know this desk, too, will eventually find its way into her classroom. Given the impact UT Austin has had on her life and career, I jumped at the chance when Uplift Desk reached out about testing one of the desks from its new Collegiate Collection, which includes a number of designs based around National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) schools.
Once I saw the UT one, I knew my wife would absolutely love it. Here’s what it was like putting it together, customizing it specifically for her, and why both freshmen and alumni alike might want to consider showing off their own school pride with one of Uplift Desk’s new university desks.
Rebuilding one of my favorite desks
The University of Texas desk that Uplift sent over arrived in three boxes: one for the desktop, one for the legs, and one for the desk’s frame and feet. While this UT desktop is part of the company’s new Collegiate Collection, the desk itself is actually the Uplift V2. This was one of the first desks I built and reviewed, so I was right at home when it came to putting everything together. In fact, the Uplift V2 is one of my all-time favorite standing desks due to the sheer number of customization options to pick from when configuring it.
With Uplift Desk’s new university-themed standing desks, you can pick from two color options for each of them. For instance, my wife’s new UT desk is also available in black with an orange Longhorn. The same goes for the other desks in the Collegiate Collection like the Penn State one that comes in navy blue or white or the University of Southern California one that comes in cardinal red or black.
Once you’ve selected your colorway, you then pick from 10 different desktop size options starting at 42 x 30 inches all the way up to a massive 80 x 24 inch desk. In our shared office, my wife has her desk on the left, and I swap between review models on the right. So I went with the 48 x 30-inch size for her desk since there's a 50-inch gap between the wall and the fireplace. If you’re thinking about upgrading to a standing desk yourself, make sure that you get one that isn’t too big for your space, as you need extra room for clearance so that nothing gets in its way as it moves up and down.
Once I got started, building this customized version of the Uplift V2 was surprisingly easy, especially as this was my second time putting together this particular desk. I’d say the hardest part was lining up the holes on the two side brackets at either end with the pre-drilled holes in the desktop. Since Uplift’s desks are available in multiple sizes, an adjustable crossbar rail is used to connect the two legs to each other and then to the desktop. Though it was a little tricky lining everything up when I first built the Uplift V2, I found the whole assembly process to be a lot simpler this time around.
With my wife’s new UT desk built, it was time to start adding a few key optional accessories I picked out specifically for her before putting the finishing touches on her upgraded workspace.
Customized convenience
To give this burnt orange and white UT desk a cleaner overall look, I went with white legs and Uplift’s standard C-Frame. However, the V2’s frame and legs are also available in black, gray, and an industrial brown. Likewise, in addition to this style of frame, there’s also a commercial version that adds a stability crossbar between the two legs, as well as a T-style frame that’s centered with the desktop.
With the C-style frame, there’s a lot of extra room underneath the desktop, which not only gives you more leg room but also frees up space for Uplift’s optional under-desk accessories like pull-out drawers, storage cubbies, and more. One great thing about the Uplift V2 and the company’s other desks is that they ship with a cable management tray. While I prefer more complicated desk setups with multiple monitors and one of the best mini PCs to power everything, my wife likes to keep things simple and mainly works from her laptop.
For that reason, instead of grommet rings for easier cable management, I decided to put a power grommet on either side of her desk. That way, she can just plug in her laptop directly at the back of her desk as opposed to having to run a cable up from one of the best surge protectors inside her cable management tray.
While the power grommet on the left side of her desk has two AC power outlets and a USB-A and USB-C port, at first glance, the one on the right looks like it only has two USB-A ports and a single USB-C one. However, if you push down on its center, it actually pops up to reveal not two but four AC power outlets. I really like how, instead of being standard two-prong outlets, they’re three-prong outlets, which can be very useful for your more power-hungry devices.
Installing these two power grommets was really easy, too. You just remove the plastic ring on the bottom, run the full length of their power cord through the grommet hole, and then twist the ring back on to hold the power grommet in place. This was actually my first time trying out power grommets, as I usually just leave the holes at the back of my desk empty to make it easier to run speaker cables from one side of the desk to the other. However, now that I’ve had a chance to use them, it’s easy to see why power grommets are so popular. Uplift also has storage grommets to keep things like USB flash drives and other small accessories within reach.
To free up some additional space on the top of my wife’s desk and give her a place to store papers, I added an under-desk drawer too. I put it on the left side of her desk, as the keypad for adjusting the desk’s height is mounted on the right side. Besides the foam padding and lip on top of the drawer to make it easier to store a laptop or a tablet, I really like how the drawer itself locks. I doubt my wife will really have a use for this feature here at home, but when she inevitably brings this desk to school, the fact that this under-desk drawer locks is certainly going to come in handy.
Now that I had all these extra accessories installed, it was time to start plugging things in and adding a few things on and around my wife’s new desk setup to give it a more personalized feel.
A desk to remember (or aspire to)
Before the big reveal when my wife got home from school, I went about adding those few finishing touches to her new UT desk. I put her diploma back up on the wall (I had taken it down while shooting pictures for another standing desk review), and to match the Longhorn in the center of the desktop, I hung up the stuffed one she’s had for as long as I can remember.
Since my wife is a math teacher, she prints a lot of handouts each day and sometimes even at home (any teacher can tell you how busy the printers get at school), which is why we’re still using our HP Tango printer. I actually put the power grommet with the two AC outlets on the left side of the desk for this reason. The printer is there when she needs it, but it doesn’t take up unnecessary space when it’s not in use.
I put her pens out in an organizer on top of the desk and a few of her favorite knick-knacks like her glass flamingo and her custom “WHATAteacher” table tent from Whataburger that they give out during National Teacher Appreciation Week each May. Finally, I put my wife’s personal MacBook and her iPad on top of her under-desk drawer. I’m sure she’ll be adding a bit more flair and a few of her own things now that the desk is hers to use, but I figured I’d get things started for her.
When she got home from school later that day, she was blown away by her new desk and couldn’t get over how it had a custom UT-themed desktop. Uplift also sent over a saddle-style stool in matching orange, but our son had more fun with it than we did. Like me, my wife prefers working while seated in one of the best office chairs, but she appreciated the attention to detail on Uplift’s part.
While other companies go from one model or product line to the next, I really like how Uplift has continued to build on its V2 desk line for years after it first debuted back in 2019. Compared to the standard Uplift V2, which starts at $599, getting a desk from the company’s new Collegiate Collection is certainly more expensive at $939 or higher, depending on how you configure your desk. However, as these college-themed desks are officially licensed by the NCAA, a portion of the desk’s price does go to support the universities.
For an alumnus like my wife, getting one of these desks is the perfect reminder of your university days and a great way to show off your school pride. While doing so might be overkill for a freshman living in the dorms, where their room will likely come with a desk, one of Uplift’s Collegiate Collection desks might be an excellent back-to-school upgrade for upperclassmen living off campus. Either way, though, the Uplift V2 is a desk you’ll be able to use far after you finish college and for years to come afterwards, thanks to its 15-year warranty.
I might not have attended UT Austin myself, but after walking by my wife’s new desk after building it, I have started developing my own school pride for a university that still means so much to her and always will.
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