The quick answer is that there aren't any real great places. The third floor of the med school has a lot of study rooms (big tables, whiteboards, about half of them have computers) that people use individually or with friends. The plus to these rooms is that they are pretty much available 24 hrs a day, unless there is a conference or class during school hours. The con is that these rooms fill up quickly, esp. around exams, and it gets really old really quickly. A lot of people from Baylor and UT-Houston, as well as U of H, use Fondren library at Rice. This is pretty good -- close to Baylor, but a little bit of a change of pace. The other popular spots are local coffeehouses and the cafes in the Borders and Barnes and Nobles bookstores all over the area. The downsides to these locations are the distractions of people-watching, being interrupted by other classmates, and small tables.