The Natural Choice

Introduction
My brother and sister both went here. I was always a fan of the football and basketball team here. The campus is just beautiful. It seemed like the natural choice.

Campus Life and Social Life
Champaign is a large set of cities but it is in the middle of no where basically. There are enough people for it to be a big town, but it feels really intimate when you get around the campus area. The restaurants are really good down here and the whole scene down here is a lot of fun.

We take a lot of pride in the fact that we are the number one civil engineering school in the country. Class reflects that. They are hard but when I am done, I know a lot more from that class than I’ve known from taking a class in my life. The classes out here are phenomenal. It is work but it is well rewarded work. This is because people that graduate from U of I with an engineering degree are going to do a whole lot better than people who graduate from another school with an engineering degree. Especially a civil engineering degree. The reason the civil engineering program is so good is linked to the fact that the theoretical and applied mechanics department is so good. That is also ranked number one. Advertisement
Academics
For the most part, professors and TAs are very available for extra help or to talk outside of class. Sometime classes are very large, and it’s a little hard to see the intimacy at that point. But if you go out of your way and you go to their office hours, they are more than willing to talk to you. Even if you don’t need help in class, they are still very good to talk to. That is because all the professors down here are very knowledgeable and passionate about what they do.

Student Body
My experience so far has been good. If you know anything about Illinois’ basketball team, the entire campus and town was united behind them when they were pushing for the national championship. That is a really good thing to have—that everyone is rooting for one thing.

In Closing...
Making friends is probably the best thing about college and you are never going to forget your friends from college.