In his memoir, "Adventures of a Ballad Hunter", Lomax recounts how he had arrived at the University of Texas with a roll of cowboy songs he had written down in childhood. He showed them to an English professor, Morgan Callaway, only to have them discounted as "cheap and unworthy," prompting Lomax to take the bundle behind the men's dormitory and burn it. His interest in folksongs thus rebuffed, Lomax focused his attentions on more acceptable academic pursuits. He joined the fraternity Phi Delta Theta and the Rusk Literary Society, as well as becoming an editor and later the editor-in-chief of the "University of Texas Magazine". During the summer of 1896, he attended a summer school program in Chicago studying languages. In 1897, he became an associate editor of the "Alcalde", a student newspaper. After graduation in June 1897, he worked at the University of Texas as registrar for the next six years until the spring of 1903. He also had other duties such as being personal secretary to the President of the University, manager of Brackenridge Hall (the men's dormitory on campus), and serving on the Alumni Scholarship Committee. Lomax joined a campus fraternity known as The Great and Honorable Order of Gooroos receiving the title "Sybillene Priest".