Illinois State University Top Questions

My college classmates were fun, energetic, career driven, social, and generous people that I loved surrounding myself around.

My classmates are passionate about using their education to improve their current and future communities.

The courses I am currently in are mostly general education courses which allow for students with all levels of determination and drive, with that being said there are many hardworking students, like myself that strive to do the best on every assignment or exam they are given.

My classmates are vibrant, enthusiastic and goal driven individuals who make the college experience even more worth while.

My classmates range from quite to enthusiastic, but all of them are willing to listen to eveyones thoughts.

My classmates are diverse, young, friendly and willing to form study groups even if the course doesn't require group projects.

My classmates in my gen-ed classes tend to be lazy while the students in my major tend to be more driven.

Illinois State University is extremely diverse. There are several fraternities and sororities on campus that are specific to culture. There are just cultural groups in general at ISU. There are several religious groups on campus as well. just recently, there was an atheist group created on campus - not to ruin the religious groups, but just to try and accept others who do not fall into the religious category.

The school is predominantly white so that's mostly who your around. But so far in my experience I have never had any problems with race. Unfortunately the majority of races stick to themselves, however everyone is friendly and there aren't really conflicts. In terms of sexual orientation and socio-economic status, I have never seen problems with either of those. The school seems pretty supportive of being yourself and accepting of that! The majority of students where sweatpants to classes. No one wants to get up at 8 and look cute for a lecture! The dinning hall varies, but usually people go with familiar faces and if they don't go with someone they know they usually get a take-out box. There are only a few times a day that the dinning centers are busy and seating is almost never a problem. In my experience money differences never seems to be a big issue. We are all broke college students, some people just have others providing for them. It never seems to be an issue or something people talk about unless it's complaining of a lack of money. Politically it doesn't really seem to be a topic people talk about. Our generation typically isn't super into politics. For the most part we are all in the same boat with similar goals...to graduate with as little debt as possible!

Majority of the students at Illinois State grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. If you grew up here as well it might be easy for you to imagine, that similar type cliques form at the college level (not in a bad way). During your first year or two away at school, most students find their way into a group of friends which most likely will remain their group of close friends throughout their college years. At Illinois State, there is a requirement that freshman and sophomores must live on campus (in resident halls) for those first two years (exemptions are made for special cases). This is the time when you get exposed to different people, who are outside of your racial group, may practice a different religion, and come from a different socio-economic background. I found my experience in the dorms to open me up and become more comfortable and accepting of individuals who are different from me. Generally going to class students wear sweats, some prefer jeans, but still a casual look. It is rare that students get very dressed up for class with the exception of presentation days, and some business majors, as you get more into your major classes (usually junior and senior year) are required to wear business attire to class. Financial backgrounds vary a little bit, as they probably do among students of any university. Some students come from families that are more well-off and whose parents can afford to pay their tuition in full. Others may have to take out a couple of loans, and other take out loans to pay for the entirety of their schooling and plan on paying it back later.