Hi,
I am a high school senior in Chicago suburbs. I have got admission to Computer Science in Purdue West lafayatte ( also honor college) and also at Illinois Tech. I did not get any scholarships from Purdue but got scholarship from Illinois Tech.
Cost of attendance is lower at Illinois tech due to financial aid eventhough tuition is higher in illinois tech. I have to make a decision sooner to decide on one of these 2 colleges.
Can anybody help me.
Some of my questions
Research opportunities for undergraduates in purdue vs illinois tech.
Internship opportunities in freshman year at purdue vs illinois tech.
Any additional scholarships for Computer Science students.
Congrats on your acceptance! You have two very solid choices to pick from.
While Purdue may be a bit better known, IIT is nothing to scoff at. In CS, I’ve heard, opportunities are mostly what you yourself make of it, but Purdue may have a higher ceiling, per se.
I am aware of Purdue’s departmental scholarships, but cannot attest to more than that.
If I were in your position, I would weigh the price and benefit of the schools, and make a decision based on that.
Have you visited either school? Sometimes that can seal the deal.
I know a student in CS at IIT. This student works very hard, has had both research and internship opportunities. I can’t speak to internship in CS after freshman year as this student took summer school classes that year. IIT is an excellent school with plenty of opportunities. The campus is safe with urban awareness needed.
My daughter is at IIT and graduates this year in engineering. She has had I believe four internships; after freshman year she had an unpaid internship with a nonprofit, tangentially related to her major, where she gained great “soft skills” and leadership experience. The other internships were all engineering. With graduation nearing, she’s getting excellent job offers. She’s also done research and had great support from her professors.
iIT has excellent career services.
I don’t know about additional scholarships.
It is possible to get internships after the first year at Illinois Tech. In my experience, the students who are able to get them are those who start looking early, attend the job fairs, and are flexible in their expectations. As for additional scholarships, IIT students may apply for the Leadership Academy which carries a scholarship upon selection. It is not trivial to be selected though as the students needs to demonstrate significant leadership and engagement on campus.
Here is some information from one of our current Illinois Tech students, Nathan Cooper Jones:
Research opportunities for undergraduates in Purdue vs Illinois Tech.
I can’t speak for Purdue, but at Illinois Tech, there are numerous undergraduate research opportunities. Nearly 95% of all of our professors here have PhDs and almost all of those are conducting active and cutting-edge research. Since we are a smaller school, a lot of these professors are constantly looking for undergraduates to help out with research. In fact, I’ve taken a lot of classes where professors teach the class around their research and try to get students interested enough to apply. Basically, you can do research here as an undergraduate for sure - plenty of opportunities!
Internship opportunities in freshman year at Purdue vs Illinois Tech.
Again, I can’t speak for Purdue, but I can tell you about the opportunities at Illinois Tech. While it’s not super common for students to do summer internships after their first year, almost all CS students get accepted into either an internship or research program the summer after their second year. The curriculum really ramps up around this time and your classes will get much more specific to your actual end-goal in CS (whether that be software engineering, web developer, data science like me which is objectively the best, artificial intelligence, systems programming, etc.). We also have a career fair every semester that is huge - we have about 200 companies that come here and offer internship (and even part-time and full-time) positions solely for Illinois Tech students. For me, I am currently in my second year here but was able to land an internship last summer with the Geena Davis Institute (a position I still have today) and a research experience for undergraduates for this summer at the University of Houston. As long as you actively apply and pay attention during classes, landing an internship should be without worry!
Any additional scholarships for Computer Science students.
Illinois Tech offers a lot of pretty generous merit-based scholarships, but none are exclusively Computer Science (that I know of, at least). We do accept any external scholarships you may acquire, so I do know that there are a ton of CS scholarships out and about the world. So go out and apply my friend! Let me know if you have any more questions that I could possibly answer for you. Cheers!
As for campus safety, Illinois Tech is a safe environment. Although our campus is located in the south side of Chicago, our large campus safety presence ensures that all of our students are protected on campus. For the most part, Illinois Tech Public Safety Officers are either ex-Chicago Police Force or ex-military officers, which makes them qualified to do what they do. Additionally, there is a Chicago Police Department headquarters on the corner of 35th Street and Michigan Avenue, which is only about 2 blocks off campus. Between Public Safety and Chicago Police Department Officers, we have patrol cars driving through all of the ends of campus 24/7, 365 days a year. Throughout these patrols, the officers are making sure that there are no incidents happening on campus, and if they see anything suspicious, they will immediately pull over and clear up the situation. We also have many emergency posts located in many populated areas of campus. If there is ever an emergency on campus, the red button on any of the posts can be pressed, and Illinois Tech Public Safety will be on the scene within 90 seconds. Lastly, we have an on campus escort service for students in which any student on campus or within a one-mile radius of off campus can call Public Safety’s Escort Service phone number. Calling this number will get any student a public safety escort that will pick them up at the address where they currently are and drop them off at the residence hall, apartment, restaurant, etc that they are trying to get to.
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to us!