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<p>I imagine the mistake of IIT for ITT is similar to how most people aren’t aware there’s a difference between U Penn and Penn State.</p>
<p>Or USC IN CA vs USC in, well SC. Is the South Carolina USC referred to as SC as well?</p>
<p>Thank you Seattle_mom for saving me the effort. U-dub, Wazzu.<br>
Back when my oldest was getting brochures in the mail (so 20 th century!) Washington University didn’t emphasize the “St Louis” part. I think someone in marketing finally decided to push that so people would quit mistaking it for the University of Washington (U-Dub).</p>
<p>I’ve lived in CA for over 35 years, and Cal has always been known as Cal to me and people I know. Cal is the original University of California, and as such is sometimes referred to as “California.” I have never heard it referred to as “Berk.” That must be a new thing.</p>
<p>UMass-Dartmouth was originally called Southeastern Massachusetts University, so we had an SMU nowhere near Texas!!</p>
<p>As a faculty member at the IIT in Chicago, I am often annoyed by how many people say “ITT”. Worse still there is really an ITT in the Chicago area…</p>
<p>UIUC straddles Urbana and Champaign almost equally which is probably the reason for both names being used. When I was in college there, we just called it UI but the establishment of UI-Chicago and now UI-Springfield led to the UIUC name.</p>
<p>People in Illinois also confuse the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) with the University of Chicago. Even when I call it Uchicago people still think I’m talking about UIC.</p>
<p>I’m a UC Berkeley double grad - BA, JD. I always called it “Berkeley” but I got sideways sometime back with a local judge who was a few years older than me who insisted “There is only one Cal, and it’s in Berkeley.” (He was what is called an “Old Blue” - a longtime booster.) </p>
<p>I think the identity change occurred around the time of the Free Speech Movement (FSM) of the 60’s when the University and the city became associated with hippies, leftist politics, etc. (This may be hard to believe but Berkeley had at least one old school Republican on the City council into the 70’s as I recall.) I’m not comfortable with “Cal.” It’s a style thing, I think. Rah-rah=Cal, FSM=Berkeley.</p>
<p>The law school used to be know as “Boalt Hall” although it’s official name was “University of California at Berkeley School of Law.” A few years back the school went through a (no doubt expensive) rebranding process and we alumni were all instructed to refer to Boalt as “Berkeley Law” henceforth. I’m a good soldier. That’s what I call it now. </p>
<p>“You can call me Ray, or you can call me Jay…”</p>
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<p>True that. Even “U of C” isn’t taken to explicitly refer to UChicago, what with the many other U-of-Cs and UCs.</p>
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<p>Generally I’m in favor of disambiguating when one name could generate confusion, even when it’s the most widely known. In this case, I consider “Berkeley” much more appropriate. (I don’t, however, think any Berkeley Community College or whatever is nearly as well-known as UCLA and its ilk, so in that case I wouldn’t have a problem.)</p>
<p>As a multigenrational Californian, whose parents both graduated from USC in the fifties, I have known about Cal since I was a small child. I have trouble with some of the schools on the other side of the of the continental divide, like Old Miss among others, is it the state U or the U of?</p>
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In Oklahoma there’s a Northeastern State University. It often confuses me when I see people on these forums recommending Northeastern as I have to remind myself they’re not talking about the unselective commuter school in the middle of nowhere but rather the Boston area co-op school that rejects the good majority of applicants. I’d imagine people in Louisiana must experience similar confusion with Northwestern as it’s both an outstanding research university in suburban Chicago and an underfunded commuter school in a less densely populated part of the state. </p>
<p>I also interviewed a philosophy candidate from Georgetown. No, not the university, but rather the evangelical college in Kentucky. The other student interviewer was extremely impressed by her pedigree until he realized which Georgetown she was talking about (still got the job though).</p>
<p>Growing up we always called UIUC U of I, or U of I in Champaign-Urbana. Champaign was the bigger place in our eyes, and it went first. I honestly had to look up the school again when I started looking at CC even though I grew up 50 miles from the campus and spent dozens of weekends there in my youth. Now that I live near Chicago I hear UIUC.</p>
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<p>No. If you’re in the state of SC, we say USC. Once you get outside the state, you always have to preface it with ‘the one in SC’. Some say Carolina but then if you go out of state, you have to preface it with ‘the one in SC’ because some people use Carolina for UNC Chapel Hill.</p>
<p>In North Carolina, Carolina always means UNC. We say South Carolina or USC for the university in Columbia. The other USC we call Southern Cal. ASU is understood to be Appalachian State University, not the one in Arizona, although most people call it Appalachian or just App.</p>
<p>A professor I worked with went to WUSTL but would write it as Washington. Washington is used to refer to the University of Washington aka the U-Dub, though younger people just say U-Dub. Washington State University is Wazzu.</p>
<p>I’m surprised that the University of Mississippi hasn’t been mentioned as most everyone calls it Ole Miss.</p>
<p>The University of Alabama at Birmingham is almost always referred to as UAB.</p>
<p>The University of Nevada, Las Vegas is commonly known as UNLV, but the University of Nevada, Reno is not referred to as UNR unless its teams are playing UNLV in Las Vegas.</p>
<p>Ole Miss was mentioned in Post #51 SEA_tide.</p>
<p>Everyone at Interlochen called the Univ of Michigan “U Mish.”</p>
<p>Must have been an Interlochen-ism…most people in Michigan say “Michigan” and that means Ann Arbor or “State” and that means Lansing when referring to the universities.</p>
<p>Sea_tide
Thank you for the Ole Miss info, now I know it’s U of.</p>
<p>I also have trouble with OSU, Oregon or Ohio? Being in California is generally means Oregon.</p>
<p>A coworker of mine attended USC (as in University of Southern California), and her daughter currently attends there. She refers to it as “SC” and I haven’t the heart to tell her no one knows what the heck she’s talking about (well, other than me).</p>