University of Illinois--Urbana-Champaign | Student Reviews | Best College

Student Profile

Serenity

Class: Senior
Major: Communications
Gender: F

High School: Thomas Kelly H.S
Transfer Student: N

Big Picture

The best thing about Illinois is that fact that it's isolated from the 'real world', that three hour drive takes you into a world that is unlike reality. It's fun you feel free, you can grow as a person and develop intellectually all the while being independent. I think my school is just right in terms of size. When I tell people that I go to Illinois they are impressed and proud of me. I spend most of my time on the quad. It's a college town hands down. I am not too familiar with the administrative aspect of Illinois, sorry. The biggest recent controversy was over an exchange between a greek sorority Delta Delta Delta and fraternity ZBT entitled "Tacos and Tequila", the reasoning behind the controversy was because they had members of their sorority dressed in urban clothing and pregnant clothing while the guys dressed up as landscape workers with fake tattoo tear-drops. This event was huge but our school tried hard to keep it under wraps, which I believe they did a good job, only the local newspaper published an article on the event. There is so much school pride, Illinois students are the proudest of their school. I don't think there's anything unusual, well actually there is a dormitory that's the farthest from campus which happens to be the dorm that minorities are assigned to...segregation perhaps? The experience that I will never forget would have to be my freshman year, the first week had events catered to the entering freshman. I loved it! The most frequent complaints would have to be politics with the 'Chief'

Academic Life

Professors do not know your name! Let's not sugar coat it, if that's what your looking for DO NOT...I repeat DO NOT apply to U of I. The classrooms are huge, (auditorium sized). Favorite class: ART 250 It's a class in which they teaching you how to write using video. Interesting right? I loved it, I learned how to edit and make quality videos. (Plus it fulfills three Gen eds) Least favorite: BIO 120 Integretive Biology...Yuck! Students study ALL THE TIME...The Library is so full of people Class participation is not common, you try asking a question in a room full of 300 students. Intellectual convos are very common with my friends and I. The students are extremely competitive, I've seen people get disgruntled over a B The most unique class would have to be the same as my favorite class ART 250 My major is Communication and I enjoy it because there's a wide variety of careers that I can persue with this Major. I do not spend time with professors outside of the classroom. I feel that the Illinois academic requirements are challenging, many people complain about all the weed-out classes. I feel that the education is geared more learning for it's own sake.

Student Body

The Campus is very self-segregated. The kind of student that would feel out of place would be Native American students, I recently learned that we have only like one or two. Also because of the controversy with the chief Native American students feel offended. I can't say most, however many wear joggers/p.js...others jeans and a t-shirt, and of course some girls wear their clubbin outfits. No different kinds of students don't really interact The first table will have rich white sorority girls all around eating salads and discussing greys anatomy, the second table will consist of white frat guys laughing loudly and joking about last nights party. The third table will be a mixture of white nerdy kids that lack the sense to match and are all coincidently color-blind, the fourth table will be 45% Middle-eastern 45% Asian and 6% Black and 4% Hispanic. (Which go without a discription because they are always filed under 'other') I think most Illinois students are from Illinois, more specifically the suburbs of Illinois and the rest of the students are International...[With some national (N.Y, California, etc) sprinkled in too.] Finacial backgrounds that are most prevalent are upper middle class Students are very much politically aware and active on campus, we have rallys all the time on campus political issues. I don't really hear people talking about how much money they'll earn but I often do hear people saying, "I'm going to be ballin" with Business majors or "I'm going to be poor" with art majors