Hi, I have recently been admitted into the UIUC computer engineering class of 2024. I have always been really interested in computer engineering and have done many STEM-related activities throughout high school such as programming/engineering camps, FIRST robotics, TSA, etc. After reading through several forums and polls I have gotten a little bit scared if computer engineering may be too hard for me or too much for me to handle. I am also a girl and have been told that this major may be too much for me to handle. I was just wondering if computer engineering at UIUC is impossible? Is it possible to do well in the courses and have a social life at the university, such as intramural sports?
I’ve also read that UIUC often admits certain weed out, students? Is this true?
Overall, I have heard many scary stories about computer engineering at UIUC and I’m starting to get some doubts. I’m not asking for reassurance or anything but I just want to know the truth about how hard or intense computer engineering is.
Congratulations on being accepted to Illinois! Admittedly, I’m not an ECE student here, but I do have quite a few ECE friends, and I’m familiar with many classes they take, so I think I’m fairly qualified to answer your question. You also said you’re not looking for reassurance but instead want to know the difficulty of the major, so I’ll try to focus on addressing that.
First off, I’ve never heard of admissions trying to bring in students just to weed them out. It’s true that some students fail courses early on, but that’s not because admissions is trying to set them up to fail. That’s most often due to students not adapting to the additional difficulty and time required of college courses compared to high school. In my opinion, the best strategy to tackle these difficult, time-consuming courses is to start working early and taking advantage of your resources (including office hours as well as the vast number of websites with CS, ECE, math, and physics knowledge).
Based on what I’ve seen, it seems that many students with those “scary stories” you mention have either made a habit of procrastination or signed up for more courses than they could handle in a semester. Plenty of students here get 'A’s in the meaty ECE/CS/Math courses not because they’re special geniuses, but because they were just able to apply good study methods.
This all isn’t to say that hard work will guarantee you a 4.0, but I’m sure that if you’ve been accepted here, you have the capacity to do well.
To address your other point; it’s definitely possible to have a social life. Occasionally you’ll have to make sacrifices for your coursework, but if you allocate your time well, you’ll be able to join clubs, play intramural sports, and go to social events often enough. You’ll have the be the one to determine how much of that you can handle, but you won’t have to resign yourself to a life of loneliness in college.
1 Like