3 concerns about UIUC - please help before decision day

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
1

<p>Seeking UIUC (engineering) defenders:</p>

<p>have been accepted into compE , ECE engineering college. I am leaning seriously to UIUC (especially because of its reputation in the post grad employer world, so that if you can get thru the engineering program, you'll be ok for employment), but I have these concerns about UIUC (hey , nothing's perfect :) ) based on hearsay and my limited observations. </p>

<p>So can people address these concerns? or provide workarounds to mitigate these concerns?</p>

<ol>
<li>"too big" - class size / teacher accessibility makes it hard to learn; also I have heard claims of 'students feel like a number' - this might be expressed in difficulty/red tape to go from one dept to another, eg, or in getting tutoring, advice, mentoring, educational support, perhaps; </li>
</ol>

<p>I have a heard of pretty high failure rates on some classes and the 4 yr grad rate in engineering is not that high [please cite the real stats]. does this indicate a problem in the teaching?</p>

<ol>
<li><p>"party culture" <a href="ie,%20many%20students%20somewhat%20less%20than%20studious%20and%20therefore%20a%20student%20who%20wants%20to%20study%20more%20than%20party%20might%20be%20perceived%20as%20odd">/B</a></p></li>
<li><p>difficult to get a well rounded education**. "Can get a degree, but not an education". I have read that someone on these pages say UIUC is a "degree factory". For the structured ECE pgm, so goes the claim, it is close to a hyper STEM program , almost like a devry tech institute, or perhaps like RPI, a big ROse Hulman, and the like. How is UIUC/ece different than a tech institute, RPI, and the like? </p></li>
</ol>

<p>How does UIUC's (engineering) mission differing from these hyper stem tech schools?</p>

2

<p>not an engineering major, so my answers are non-specific.</p>

<ol>
<li>mostly applies to 100-level introductory courses required for a specific major. if they seem difficult, it’s because they’re designed to weed out insufficient students. the large lectures are also usually combined with smaller discussions of 20-30 students where you can bring up any questions you have.</li>
</ol>

<p>it’s not likely that you will take classes with 100+ students more than 3-4 times in the next four years.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>not true, it depends on who you make friends with–partiers or studiers. there’s plenty of both and most people are in between.</p></li>
<li><p>it is what you make of it. if you just fulfill the basic requirements for your major/graduation, you will get a degree. if you get involved, join organizations, talk to your professors, get a job/research, challenge yourself with classes, you will get an education. there are plenty of opportunities in and outside of champaign to get involved in.</p></li>
</ol>

3

<p>thanks, zealain, for the good response and for not flaming me. I am sort of taking the ‘devil’s advocate’ position as the d day winds down.</p>

<p>on the third concern, the text in the bold face suggested a wide interpretation of what it might mean for getting a ‘well rounded education’, which your points addressed nicely.</p>

<p>However, one of the ways that I am speaking of ‘well rounded education’ is the opportunity to take courses that are not within your major of study - in this case, compE. </p>

<p>According to the degree requirements for this major, there is a budget of 18 hrs for humanities and soc science and 12 hrs of free electives, totaling 30 hrs; if an avg course at UIUC is about 3 hrs, then that would be about 10 classes that one cd take outside the classes that are major-specific.</p>

<p>For this same major, compE, another big 10 university, Northwestern, budgets 14 classes that are outside the computer engineering course list, allowing 40 pct more such classes that might better 'round off ’ an UG education. </p>

<p>NU’s approach SEEMS like it takes it more away from the STEM heavy places such as RPI, and rose hulman, and devry. But for the latter, the purely tech-trade school, I think you make perfect points that neutralizes this concern- the opp for club/org participation and similar student engagement at UIUC is magnitudes better than a devry.</p>

<p>Thinking some more on this, but from a more academic point of view, I SUSPECT that UIUC will delve ALOT deeper than a devry from a ground-up approach, that allows a much deeper understanding of the material - of the STEM material, in this case. So, responding to my own question, this is one way that UIUC distinguishes itself from a ‘tech’ school.</p>

<p>Another way of expressing the third concern of my OP is what do the engineering students talk about in their free time? I read on a students blog site that UIUC UG engineering students typically talk about money and jobs. Was this completely anecdotal? How accurate or representative of UIUC is this?</p>

<p>do UIUC engineering students also talk about such things as , for example, economics, politics, religion, philosophy, film, music, theater, the yano mano tribe in brazil (say, something that was brought up in an anthro class)?</p>

4

<p>similarly, how much do students chatter about the subtleties and nuances of their (STEM) subjects?</p>

<p>One answer could be - Youtube’s genesis. I think I read that it was UIUC students chatting it up to address the problem of getting lots of video data across the net. How exceptional / typical of UIUC engineering student culture was this incident ?</p>

5

<p>I am going to speak of the 10 classes vs. 14 classes comparison - outside the major.
My DS is a freshman at UIUC, and we just toured NU with DD’13 over spring break. One of the features NU pointed to was that they are on the quarter system, so you will take more classes for any major. So I think the 14 vs. 10 classes is more a result of the QTR vs. Semester system as opposed to NU giving more flexibility.</p>

<p>Are those your final two options - NU and UIUC? Son didn’t apply to NU, so I can’t help with comparisons directly, but he is a happy camper at UIUC, planning to switch from General Eng. to ECE, loves his ECE course, and has found a group of friends outside of his high school friends. If those are your two final options, then ask yourself about how important an advisor is. I got the impression you might have a more attentive advisor at NU (granted that is comparing several of my relatives’ UIUC experiences with the promises made during NU’s info sessions.) The quality of advising was not on your list, but think about adding it to the list. JMHO.</p>

<p>Good luck.</p>

6

<p>An anecdote on teacher accessibility: I was visiting the campus and sat in on a Calc III class. It was in what seemed to be the main lecture hall at Altgeld, and had a good amount of students (100+). 20 minutes into the class a student walks in, and the professor turns around and says “Taylor… you’re late. You missed a lot.” I was pretty surprised that he knew this random kid by name, and seemed to know him relatively well.</p>

<p>In general during my visit teachers seemed really nice and accessible from a personality-perspective, and I got the impression that despite the kind of large student/teacher ratio, if you make the effort, you’ll get to know teachers pretty well.</p>

7

<p>The fact that UIUC engineering students only talk about money and jobs is completely false, at least for freshman and sophomores(I’m 100% sure about upperclassmen, but the few that I have met did mostly talked about other things Most of my friends at UIUC are engineering majors and we mostly talk about other topics. Typically, topics range from common topics such as sports or more “nerdy” topics such as video games or programming(if you are around CS majors).</p>

8

<p>My son is an EE major. He is not much interested in humanities classes and checked those boxes off his freshman year and is using his elective hours to fulfill math and business minor requirements. He is happy with U of I – his classes, friends and atmosphere. For him, joining a fraternity has been very helpful. His new brothers (the 10or so engineering majors) have advised him on classes and have served as a cohort study group. He says finding a group of peers has been key for him to work through the system. As for large classes – the only megaclass at 400+ – he had was in an intro marketing class.</p>

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<p>thanks for the input; it helps alot - and if anyone else has any input, I’d appreciate it.</p>

<p>Greek just came up. That is another concern that I did not list, but perhaps might be under the ‘party’ concern. I have seen numerous posts on the net of the 'heavy ’ presence of greek at UIUC. Well, how heavy is this presence? Is it oppressive? if you don’t join are you marginalized on campus? Would I have to be/play the ‘lone ranger’ role to be independent?</p>

<p>And if I joined , is there hazing and the animal house kind of stuff that one sees in the movies? Or are there lots of different greek orgs, some party oriented and other not so party oriented? Are there engineering greek orgs or serious students, ‘kappa alpha nerd’, EG :)</p>

<p>how hard is it to find the serious type of students on campus? Join clubs and orgs? let’s say you are maybe a bit quiet already (you know, “serious quiet student”), then it seems antithetical to join social groups for such a one. I have signed up at Newman hall for a dorm, so it will not be engineering (“serious student”) heavy. </p>

<p>also, someone told me that there is a device that tells the prof/teacher whether the students are 'getting ’ a concept or not by having the students enter the answer in this device. does UIUC have this device?</p>

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<p>Regarding the “device”. It is called a clicker. Son is taking physics now, and they use the I-clicker. It is hooked to your ID number, so the teacher knows who is answering questions. He gets one point for answering the question. He gets two points for answering it correctly. The tests are probably 100 points, so it has a small weight, but it is a way to reward attendance, and paying attention.</p>

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<p>My son joined a frat second semester. He said hazing did not occur, so looking around and asking questions might be a solution. I think he is happy he joined, and I am happy for the same reason GCBMIB mentioned, upper classmen engineering majors can mentor him. That has already been a positive. But I am the mom, not the kid, so ask lots of questions, if you pick UIUC.</p>

12

<p>Idic- Have you visited the campus Sat in on some classes? You can set up an appointment with the engineering department and then can facilitate some things. It is a bit late in the game to be asking such questions. You either have a good feeling about the campus or you don’t. After that it is what you make of it. No one can guarantee your success or happiness at a school. You need to have a good attitude going in that it is the right place for you and then you will make it work.</p>

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<p>yes, I went to the admitted students day a few weeks ago and sat in on three classes, world religion (for the non engineering thing that I have been saying I like ), a physics 101 class, and an ece 110 (I believe) and my dad video taped a calc III class - hah! all were huge classes. only in the physics class did I see people on FB during class. </p>

<p>Too late to consider this stuff? just think emma watson. transfers occur <em>all</em>the<em>time. mostly because students don’t know themselves and their colleges, it seems - or do not ask the right questions *ever</em>. </p>

<p>d day is an invention of college administrations to keep things moving along reasonably efficiently. while I already have ‘chosen’ urbana, as I learn more about it, things could change. absolutely, mind set is the right thing to have in order to go with the inevitable punches that will occur whereever one goes. But it is better to find stuff out now instead of tomorrow.</p>

<p>more info is better than no info. late info is better than no info.</p>

<p>gottagonow, I am engineering student - I tend to abstract out and systematize things.</p>

14

<p>@idic5 You have a way of words. I suggest an English minor. </p>

<p>I’m in the same boat as you, trying to decide if UIUC will be a good choice for me. I got admitted to the Business School. </p>

<p>Great advices from everyone so far.</p>

15

<p>spacekillers-don’t you have to commit by May1st? What are your other options?I am interested in the Business school too and I am out of state (looks like you are too?) What were your stats for admittance if you don’t mind sharing…</p>

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<p>I am a junior</p>

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<p>@gottagonow Hey! Yeah the deadline is May 1 but I already accepted. I am about 90% sure I’ll be going to Illinois; it is just the cost issue (~45K/year and I get no financial aid) that is keeping me from going. It is either going to Illinois or staying at my current school, George Mason University. I called them and they said the decision isn’t binding, so you can cancel it; just got to give them a call.</p>

<p>My stats: (I got in as a transfer sophomore, but I think like ~60 credits will transfer counting 30 from APs and 30 from Mason)
College GPA: 3.53
High School GPA: 3.6
SAT: 1280</p>

<p>EC:
-VP of tennis club
-president of toastmasters club
-assistant teacher at Hope Chinese School
-member of consulting/entrepreneur/investing club
-president of Chinese club
Work Experience:
-teller at Apple Federal Credit Union
-cashier at Costco
-tutor at local high school and at Mason</p>

<p>Essays:
(the essays is what I feel really got me in. I had an issue during one semester where I had to go seek counselling and treatment for depression. I failed at class that semester because of it but managed to get A’s in the rest.)
-For my personal essay (“Why you want to go here?”), I wrote about how when I visited Illinois, I felt that there I could really allow my curiosity and my intelligence to be challenged. At my current school, I feel I am cruise-controlling my way through school, seeking additional education through books and outside stuff. I thought it was an okay essay, nothing too particular or woah-factor.
-I did send them an email explaining my 1 F and my depression issue. It was just a personal letter and I just wrote what I honestly felt–basically that semester, I didnt’ care about school and just wanted to be happy; the next semester I went part-time, so I could refocus and get my mentality back)</p>

<p>SUMMARY: Illinois really does look at more than just your GPA, so even if you don’t have a 3.8 (which is the average for their business school), you can get in if you show them that you are a honest, hard-working, and intelligence-seeking individual. I feel they know that everyone messes up and they understand if you fail a class or what not.
Good luck and consider going! Their accounting program is like #2 or 3 in the nation and financial can’t be far behind. The other business programs are also decent :)</p>

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<p>Spacekillers- Thanks for the reply. Great come back story and good luck at Illinois!!</p>

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<p>idic5, did you decide? Do not assume you have to join a frat…I think those in the greek system believe it is the only way to go, but the GDI’s (non-greeks) can have an incredible social network as well. There is an engineering frat (triangle) which will have very serious students, who also want to be social, and there are other more diverse frats. ALL of them have engineer and business students with rigorous curricula, and for the most part, they want to do well in classes. You’re not going to find a huge group of slackers, although you will always find individual slackers. … People are REALLY REALLY friendly at UIUC, and it isn’t hard to make friends. If you’re not from the midwest, you may be surprised how friendly and accepting most people from the midwest are. </p>

<p>I think the majority of students are very happy here and glad they chose it. Of course there will be exceptions, and you may hear about it from unhappy campers. My Engineering Sophomore son is thriving and is very happy there.</p>

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<p>thanks, d101parent, for the input. I signed up for UIUC, compE. yay! no more concerns, but maybe some questions. i ahve to admit I put that reference to d day to get a response before the thread falls off teh table. coming to know UIUC is and will be an ongoing discovery.</p>

<p>I’m from the MW. out of curiousity, if people are so friendly, why the anger in GDI (what’s the big deal )?</p>

<p>what type of engineering is your son in? how has he found the teachers and the classroom experience to be ? are there courses to watch out for? has your son been able to find support somewhere at the univ if he ever needed any help with questions - prof, TA, tutoring? or did your son just get it all w/o any need for help? </p>

<p>in those big classrooms, if you have a question, can you shoot your arm up and ask or will the prof and or the students want to kill you?</p>

<p>what are weed outs? that does not seem to be a nice way to run a teaching institution - to ‘weed’ the students that have applied and went thru heck in high school and everywhere else to get into UIUC engineering. how about ‘tending to the flowers’ or something like this? I wonder if you can weed out bad teachers who do nt know the language? just asking?</p>

<p>I wonder if the placement tests - which I understand are a newer thing - is an attempt to reduce the weed out phenomenon?</p>

<p>thanks for the reference to the triangle frat [Triangle</a> Fraternity at Illinois](<a href=“http://triangle-uiuc.org/index.html]Triangle”>パチスロ初心者の方への指南書！)</p>

<p>I’ll repeat - I am asking devils advocate type of questions and seeking defenders of UIUC to answer.</p>