Want Outsider Opinion, Auburn vs. U. of Illinois

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I'm going into Industrial Engineering and have been accepted at Auburn University and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. I live in the Chicago suburbs.
I have received a 2/3 scholarship to Auburn to lower tuition to about $7,000 per year. It also includes a technology allowance and a study-abroad stipend. This scholarship is the major reason why I am still considering Auburn. The engineering program at Auburn is ranked in the mid-20s to early-30s. I have not visited Auburn yet. I could also possibly receive more scholarship in the upcoming weeks.
On the other hand, I've loved U of I my whole life, but I am not going to receive any financial aid from there, so tuition will be around $19,000. Illinois' engineering program is in the top-10 nationally. I have taken one academic visit and have been there multiple times for football games and love the atmosphere.
I am just wondering whether I am making too big of a deal out of the financial aspect; I am looking for any advice to help me focus in on making my decision.</p>

<p>Also, as an Industrial Engineer, should I pursue a Master's Degree? If I chose to do this, I could go to Auburn first and then get a Master's at Illinois.</p>

<p>Any advice is greatly appreciated!!</p>

2

<p>Even though it isn’t particularly easy or cheap, I really think you need to visit Auburn before you commit. Alabama is a very, very different place from Chicago. You might like it. You might not. I’d bet you $100 you’re not going to say, “Yeah, it’s fine. Whatever.”</p>

<p>Spend as much time there as you can afford to before you decide.</p>

<p>I went from high school in the square states to college in Boston to graduate school in the South (and not nearly as deep into the South as Auburn). Both of those moves were major adjustments.</p>

<p>(Illinois, I assume, no such issue. You must know dozens of people who’ve gone there, right?)</p>

3

<p>Definitely visit Auburn. FWIW, everyone I know who is connected there in some way is wild about the place, and I’ve read comments on CC from out-of-state applicants who were really enthusiastic about their visits. But I think your main question is whether the roughly $11,000 difference (+ computer, plus study abroad) was worth the difference in ranking between the two Engineering programs. I’m not an Industrial Engineer but I am a university administrator, and I can tell you that I’d take the extra $40-50K in pocket over any perceived difference between the two schools.</p>

4

<p>Go visit Auburn. While on campus, make an effort to see their Career Office and ask them what companies have recruited Industrial Engineering majors on campus over the past year. Compare to UIUC.</p>

<p>In my engineering experience, the education will pretty much be the same so you need to look at cost and environment. Top engineering programs, like UIUC, will be more widely recruited - possibly by national firms and moreso firms in its home region. Auburn will likely be more widely recruited by Southern based firms and likely less widely recruited nationally. If you go to Auburn and want to work back up in your Chicago homeland, you’ll likely have to do more legwork to get a job up north…but you’ll get a job from either.</p>

<p>A masters degree is probably not necessary for an entry level job. My standard advice is to get your BS and then work for a while…your interests may change…then go back for a masters or MBA.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the advice. I am going to visit Auburn in February. Besides the career office what else should I visit? (I’m going there for their presidential scholarship day so there are tours and those kind of things)</p>

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<p>See $cam Newton’s Heisman trophy and the team’s National Championship trophy before they get vacated! </p>

<p>Sorry could’t resist. I got a similar scholarship from Alabama and I’m contemplating a similar transition from Ohio.</p>

7

<p>Seriously, big southern schools are not the “culture shock” that a few are suggesting here.</p>

<p>I’m a Southern California native, and big southern schools are not places where people are going to find themselves scratching their heads or being shocked. </p>

<p>Our country has become less and less “regional” as transplants have moved around and big companies have “open shop” all over. Good sized cities are becoming rather homogenous in this country. When I’m in a good sized southern city, I don’t feel/see any differences from the Calif or midwest cities that I frequent month in and month out. I see the same big chains, the same popular restaurants and stores. Yes, each region will have a few of its own chains, but so what? </p>

<p>Big southern universities are run by people who are from everywhere…their degrees are from everywhere. The profs are from everywhere. Many of the students are from everywhere. </p>

<p>I find it almost hilarious that people don’t offer this “fear of culture shock” whenever someone considers - say - going to college out of the country…now that would be a culture shock for many. It’s not shocking to be going to college with other fellow Americans.</p>

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<p>m2ck, my experience going from college in New England to graduate school in the not-too-deep South was different from yours. The move was even more jarring for my wife. Because I had grown up in the square states, I merely had to reacquaint myself with a zeitgeist I thought I’d left behind me. </p>

<p>My wife, however, was absolutely nonplussed to have medical-school classmates who’d never met a Jew before. One of her classmates told her, “I didn’t realize there still were Jews.” She thought Judaism had died out, like worship of Baal, or something. Another one asked her, incredulously but sincerely, “You mean y’all never been to a pig-pickin’?” I admit, these are extreme examples, but they are not made up.</p>

<p>Maybe the popularity of Seinfeld has narrowed that particular facet of the cultural divide. But I think all you need to do is to look at any recent electoral map to see that there is still a huge political distance between the urban centers on the Coasts and around the Great Lakes on one hand, and the less urban areas of the South and Midwest. Look at political advertising from those different areas, and I think you’ll see that the political differences reflect and result from major cultural and philosophical differences. I believe the South remains much churchier than the Coasts and the Great Lakes, for example. You could like that difference, dislike it, or be indifferent to it, but I think it’s real.</p>

<p>My experience at [name of respected Southern state flagship redacted] was that although the people who ran the University (faculty, deans, etc.) were from all over and included a lot of carpetbaggers like me, the undergraduate population was much less diverse. Furthermore, this completely neglects the fact that students do come into contact with locals: they work in staff positions at the University; they work in the Safeway and the Winn-Dixie. Perhaps as a graduate student I came into contact with the community much more than the undergraduates did. I liked many things about life in that college town, but I did often feel like an outsider, too.</p>

<p>By no means am I suggesting that the OP should not go to Auburn. I merely offer the opinion that he should not go to Auburn naively. I’d offer the same advice to an Alabamian who was considering Northwestern.</p>

<p>Why do we not offer the same culture-shock warning to students planning to go abroad? Interesting question. Perhaps it is because we all expect that Cairo, Egypt, will be very different from Cairo, Illinois, but some of us have been surprised how different New Boston, Texas, is from Boston, Mass.</p>

<p>My opinion. YMMV.</p>

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<p>Actually, Over 40% of Auburn’s freshman class is composed of “out of state” students.</p>

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<p>I think it’s naive not to pretend that parts of the south will be way churchier than what the OP is used to in the Chicago area. I think Sikorsky nails it. Some of the ads for political candidates would never fly in the north. Even my friends on FB who live in the south talk about how cultural norms re religiosity are very different (eg what religion you are is assumed to be other people’s business- and it’s sketchy and suspicious to be a Unitarian, much less Jewish or Muslim).</p>

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<p>I agree with Sikorsky also. Sometimes even subtle cultural differences can be substantial, depending on perspective. This can be particularly true for ethnic minorities whom venture from metropolitan areas on the coasts or the Great Lakes to rurual southern or mountain west communities, for example. Of course there are as many perspectives and experiences as there are people. And cultural differences do not mean cultural difficulties. An open mind and patience can do wonders for the comfort of us all.</p>

12

<p>

A misleading statistic, as the vast majority of those students also come from the Deep South; 15% come from Georgia, for example. </p>

<p>9% of Auburn undergraduates are from outside the South.</p>

13

<p>“have been there multiple times for football games and love the atmosphere.”</p>

<p>I’ve been to an Auburn football game…trust me, they know how to throw a party there, too. If the sports atmosphere of Illinois is a big part of the draw, Auburn might serve you very well.</p>

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<p>Warbler, I was going to say the same thing. The composition of the Auburn student body is, in the main, absolutely southern.</p>

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<p>Do you want the better university? Do you want to interact with and compete against better students? Do you want to study under more acclaimed faculty?</p>

<p>Go to Illinois. There really is a world of quality difference between the two schools.</p>

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<p>Well, in fairness, the composition of U of Illinois is mostly midwest and it’s pretty heavily skewed to the Chicago metropolitan area (given the concentration of the state’s population).</p>

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<p>Can you afford to go to Illinois without any FA? I believe there is also a tuition upcharge of $5k for the engineering college ( maybe I’m wrong-don’t have time to check )…you sound like you bleed organge and blue and getting admitted to the Illinois engineering program is quite a feat so congrats - a tough decision but a good problem to have!</p>

18

<p>I agree that Auburn is a distinctly Southern university and a Midwesterner might experience some culture shock there. However, it’s a big place, and not everyone who grew up in the South is culturally Southern. A Midwesterner in the engineering honors program who loves football is going to find plenty of kindred spirits at Auburn to be friends with. To put it another way, there are a lot more people at Auburn than Illinois who have strong Southern accents, hunt, talk about Jesus with total strangers, etc. But there are also many thousands of students at both schools (especially among the engineers) who are more or less interchangeable culturally – if you met them at Disney World or Yellowstone, you’d know they were American college students, but that’s it. When the OP visits, he’ll see whether he actually feels alienated there. It may surprise him.</p>

19

<p>Thank you for all the help everyone. I just visited Auburn this past weekend, and it was really a great campus and a great feel. However, I am still wondering about some things before I make my decision.
First, are there any former or current AU students that aren’t from the South that could tell me how major of a transition it is? I didn’t feel like it would be overwhelming, but I just want to be sure.
Next, do employers see much of a difference between an engineering degree from U of I than from AU? And will employers around Chicago see value in an AU engineering degree?
And last, does anyone have an experience where they went to a school that wasn’t their favorite team while growing up? This would be my case if I went to AU. I want to know if you regret the decision you made.
Any input would be greatly appreciated!</p>

20

<p>*My wife, however, was absolutely nonplussed to have medical-school classmates who’d never met a Jew before. One of her classmates told her, “I didn’t realize there still were Jews.” She thought Judaism had died out, like worship of Baal, or something. Another one asked her, incredulously but sincerely, “You mean y’all never been to a pig-pickin’?” I admit, these are extreme examples, but they are not made up.</p>

<p>*</p>

<p>Yes, those are extreme examples…which is why they are worthless. I’ve encountered silly and ridiculous statements from people all over this country. I wouldn’t be narrow-minded enough to assume that those people represent the region, nor would I say that a person shouldn’t go to college there.</p>

<p>My Calif SIL’s parents believe that Catholics are …well…the next thing to the devil…so should people fear sending their kids to school in Calif? Heck no. </p>

<p>If the concern is that the OP is Jewish, Hindu, or Muslim or whatever, then the concern about “fitting in” can exist anywhere if a school just has a tiny number of kids with those religions. </p>

<p>DCRich…do you belong to a religion that is more clustered in other parts of the country? </p>

<p>I have come to realize that there is a big difference between what goes on in a city/university and what goes on in some small town. And, that goes for everywhere in this country. People who live in less populated areas often do have a more limited outlook on life, while people from more populated areas tend to be more “open-minded” and accepting of differences.</p>

<p>Getting to the OP’s recent question. You’re not going to be paid less for having your degree from Auburn. Engineers start out about the same no matter where they went to undergrad…the slight exceptions might be MIT or Cal Tech grads…and even then, not so much. </p>

<p>Auburn and Alabama can offer many internship and Co-op opportunities because the state is home to many high-tech companies. The state is home to the second largest research park in the nation…Cummings Research Park. it’s the reason why my county has one of the highest (if not the highest) concentration of engineers and PhDs in the nation. </p>

<p>the transition will not be overwhelming, odd, weird, or shocking. </p>

<p>As for favorite teams. you will not be obligated to be a Tiger fan…however, school spirit can be very catching. My Calif kids had their Calif fav teams, but they couldn’t resist becoming Crimson Tide fans once they enrolled. A similar thing could happen to you if you enroll at Auburn.</p>