<p>I visited UNL last spring, and I loved the campus and felt like I could fit in with the students, but I don't know if the academics are challenging enough. </p>
<p>With specific regard to the engineering department, how hard are the classes at Nebraska?</p>
<p>unl is improving it's reputation for challenging academics. It all just depends on what classes you take, if you take upper level or honors classes you will be challenged.
The engineering department has a good reputation, nice new facilities, but i don't know the strength of the program.</p>
<p>You can make it as hard as you want, or as easy as you want. It all depends on what classes you take. </p>
<p>If you want it easy, find out what the Business Administration majors and athletes take. Examples would be Astronomy 101, Sociology 101, and Theater 112 G. </p>
<p>If you want it to be challenging, do what I did. Take 200 level courses your freshman year, in all areas. I'm not a History major yet I took two, 200 level History courses and they were no doubt challenging. The teachers here are good too. My one History teacher I know has a PhD in Classics and Latin from Penn, and when I talk to her, she seems to know a lot. </p>
<p>Do consider that there are a lot of brilliant students here. Being that this is the top school in Nebraska; the state's best students come here. Then you have out of state students such as me who come in with big scholarship offers.</p>
<p>Besides looking at the course load, also factor in the cost. The tuition here is very low compared to other colleges. Other publics I applied to were about $10,000+ more than Nebraska a year. And if you're like me (which I assume you will), you'll be going on to graduate school. In that case, having saved $40,000+ will defiantly help you when you have to spend another $100,000 on graduate school.</p>
<p>Hope that helped a bit.</p>
<p>The UNL engineering department is simply excellent. They are making their way up through the program rankings. I started my freshman year as a ChemE, and found it to be very challenging. I'm a biochemist now, mainly because I'll graduate quicker, but I do know of a lot of Nebraska Engineers who got jobs at top notch companies.</p>