<p>If so, can you explain what life is like? How is the coursework? How many credits is a standard load? Do you have to work together or can you work alone? </p>
<p>Any advice for success in graduate school? Thanks</p>
<p>9 credits per semester is standard-6 or 12 is usually acceptable. My experience has been that the average workload per class is a little less than double that for an average undergraduate class. It is tough, but manageable if you have the aptitude and desire to do well. The research/teaching you might do play a large part in the level of time commitment and difficulty. </p>
<p>You could make it studying alone, but chances are you will be surrounded by really smart people who would make good study partners.</p>
<p>thx for the reply, so basically they assign more hw or the hws take longer? prob both im sure</p>
<p>The concepts also take longer to understand.</p>
<p>In undergrad, I'd generally grapple with a problem and be able to work through it. Someone would always understand it. Here, in grad school, there are concepts that <em>nobody</em> understands except the prof. In order to understand some of the more complex stuff in structural mechanics, I had to take my 2'x4' whiteboard and write out my thoughts and talk to myself and read the chapter eight times and whine on IM for a while to my friends who had salaries and then go back and work longer and then finally, I'd get it. Then I'd go back for the next lecture, and the prof would be like, "Now that we've covered the basics..."</p>
<p>That, and in order to fulfill my stipend requirements, I've spent two year in a cinderblock rat cage in the basement, chained to my desk doing "research"... also known as "doing calculational work that a slightly trained monkey could do, but the monkey would be paid minimum wage."</p>
<p>Do be sure to go somewhere that you think you can be happy, as well as successful. I didn't have a good feeling about my university when I started my graduate studies here, but I felt like it would give me the best opportunities for success.</p>
<p>Also, if there's an administrative snafu or if you feel you're being treated unfairly (they forgot to pay me one month, my office flooded and I had to work in the hallway for half a semester, and my advisor missed three meetings in a row with me...) then SPEAK UP! It wasn't until I started transfer applications and made a ruckus that I got a new office, a paycheck, and weekly meetings with my advisor.</p>
<p>...and I graduate on Sunday. (glee!)</p>
<p>is uiuc that bad?</p>
<p>I've also heard UIUC is like that. My friend dropped out from it. He said there was too much theory. Thank goodness i didn't apply there.</p>
<p>I'm probably just feeling bitter at the moment. I've had to pull three all-nighters this week to finish things up, and I've had to stalk my advisor again in order to get him to meet with me so I could finish up my degree, and that always puts me in a foul mood.</p>
<p>I got screwed over pretty badly here. That being said, my case is highly unique. Most of the people going here for undergrad are very happy with UIUC, and if they continue on to grad school here, they're typically okay with it. Sure, it's a lot of work, but they've got a social life in place.</p>
<p>People who walk in off the street from other universities tend to have a more difficult time of it here, especially if they're used to a smaller university in a larger city. They have an especially difficult time if, once they get here, they find out that their would-be advisor and department head, who had promised to give them funding for their graduate studies, suddenly decided to leave them in the lurch and take a position at another university... UIUC talks a big game. They fly you in and flatter you, they tell you that you're going to get to do cutting-edge research, they say that you'll get lots of money... And some people do. Because my advisor left suddenly and I was left scrambling for funding, I was not one of those people.</p>
<p>People fall through the cracks here, even if they're stepping lightly and doing everything that they're supposed to do. It doesn't happen that often, if you're paying attention to what's going on, but some people just get screwed no matter how careful they've been. I was, unfortunately, one of those people. I'm finally done, I'm getting out Sunday, but I'm quite worse for the wear. I still haven't decided whether or not it was worth it, but something in the pit of my stomach regrets that I went here.</p>
<p>Mine is definitely not the majority opinion, though.</p>
<p>UIUC has a great graduate engineering program, that's why it has so many difficult classes, but this is definitely something you'd expect in a top engineering school.</p>
<p>I wonder if there will be a large or minimal difference in difficulty between the top schools and the 2nd tiers. I would think its mainly the quality of students that will be the major difference. I can't imagine the instruction will be so different.</p>
<p>The average faculty's profile at those top schools is different from the 2nd tiers. Consequently, faculty at top schools would have high expectation on their students (their PhD students especially). They also feel 'more free' to feed their students with complex theories without fearing that the class will be empty.</p>
<p>I expected the hard work. I didn't expect the lack of respect for the students as human beings.</p>
<p>I got pneumonia for a good two weeks last semester (perhaps caused by my aforementioned flooded, moldy basement office with the perpetually wet carpet? The world may never know...) and ended up in the hospital. The emergency dean was contacted, and passed along the message to my professors that I was really sick. The first day that I could get out of bed and walk more than two feet, I arranged meetings with all my professors, and they pretty much all just blinked at me when I told them why I'd been gone, then said something like, "...Well, the midterm is tomorrow..."</p>
<p>I was more than prepared for the coursework. It was difficult, but I figured it would be, going in. It was the whole "constantly and unremittingly being stepped on by The Man" thing that chapped my arse.</p>
<p>That sounds scary aibarr. But then again engineers don't have the greatest EQs in the world</p>
<p>I know a guy who was doing grad work at UIUC (not engineering). His thesis advisor had some sort of mid-life crisis and just up and took off, leaving him (and presumably others) in the lurch. Nobody took over for him. The guy left, as ABD, and never got his doctorate.</p>
<p>I've got a friend that got on as a postdoc at UIUC. He was mainly worried about the social life, but I't sounds like that should be the least of his worries (Yikes!). </p>
<p>I took some grad courses during my undergrad curriculum and echo what everyone else has said. A lot of the assumptions or things you accepted "as is" in undergrad or just flat out ignored are no longer ignored. There tends to be a lot more focus on theory. There also seems to be a greater emphasis, in my very limited experience, on mathematical development/treatement and less of a heuristic approach.</p>
<p>There is another path to take for engineering graduate training. If you take a job with a forward-thinking company, in a city with a decent university, there is an opportunity to do the graduate work while you are working. </p>
<p>This is the path I have taken. For about a quarter of my working life I've been taking courses in one program or another. It's culminated in my current program--a PhD program in an engineering school. Most of it was reimbursed by the companies I worked for (or the GI bill). </p>
<p>You take between 3 and 6 credits (1 - 2 courses) per semester. It takes longer, but there are important rewards. I find myself gravitating to courses that actually help me in my job. </p>
<p>It helps that my university is not an engineering Big Bad U, so we can explore little nooks and crannies of the academic landscape. </p>
<p>And, it helps to have that social safety net if things go wrong as well. I'm very sorry to hear about your troubles, Aibarr. You've always seemed to upbeat--I guess you're just a resilient type. All the best to you.</p>
<p>I try to be upbeat, since it beats the alternative... If life hands you lemons, you clone those lemons and make SUPER lemons! (Ten points to anybody who knows where that comes from... not you, wrprice.)</p>
<p>Again, my case is ridiculously rare... As one of my buddies here said, "I've never seen a thirty-mile radius gang up on a person like Champaign-Urbana has done to you...!" I made a lot of mistakes along the way, too, like not sticking up for myself as often as I should have, and not being terribly involved in professional societies, where I might have made more friends more quickly. A social life would probably have eased things. </p>
<p>I figure if I can tell prospective grad students what happened to me at Big Bad U, then maybe they'll know a few more questions to ask when they're looking at grad programs, and if something starts to go awry, they can know to stand up for themselves and make it get fixed.</p>