University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Top Questions

Some professors are ok and others are a bore. Personally, I prefer smaller classes and more interaction between the professor and each student instead of passing students along to the teacher assistant.

Amazing classes. Some suck. Quality of Education is great. Some problems with registering for classes even though they are required for you.

Professors know you if you take the time to know them. Most of them are very helpful if you seek them. The classes are oriented to make students learn the topics themselves rather than feeding information to them. Many intellectual conversations take place, obviously depending on who you meet. There are many intellectual opportunities all around campus.

Since it's such a big university, one usually has to make an effort to get to know professors. I did however take a course with an experienced professor that only had 22 kids in it. It was a speech communications class, but it was really more like an "adjusting to your new life" class. Illinois offers a series of these "Discovery Courses" exclusively for freshmen. I'm an Accountancy/Finance double major. Accy is ranked number one in the country and Fin is ranked 11th. I've only taken one business class thus far, but it was awesome and I learned a lot. The students tend to help each other out a lot and it really is not too competitive in a destructive way. Most kids in business are highly motivated and ambitious

Illinois is definitely a big school that has millions of opportunities to make it small. Sure, lectures are huge and your professor won't know your name if you only go to class and stay quiet; but, they all offer office hours that very few people actually take advantage of. It's a great time for them to get to know you, and for you to become familiar with their thought process and expectations. You have to get involved in student organizations too. Not only are they a great way to meet people, but they are a way to further integrate into your major and career path. Illinois students definitely have intellectual conversations outside of class. In a campus with over 35,000 students, there is every type of person within a ten mile radius.

One thing that many people are worried about when looking at U of I is the class size. While the lectures are very big, there are also small discussion sections which will allow for interaction and any questions one may have. Also, all profs have office hours at least twice a week so you can have your questions answered directly from them if need be.

In your first year at U of I, it is likely that you will have a few classes in large lecture halls. After that, though, most classes are small and intimate. Teachers in these classes do know names and encourage opinions and participation. There are so many classes to take too, in every subject imaginable. I've taken classes called Insects and People (my science credit!), Human Sexuality (highly recommend this one), classes that require volunteering in the community, basic classes, everything. I LOVE the Spanish classes here too. Definitely has improved my Spanish hugely.

Class sizes can be really huge or kind of small depending on the class. But even if youre in a huge lecture style class and feel like a small fish in a big sea, you can make the effort to talk with TA's or the professor to make yourself feel more comfortable. Don't hesitate to talk up in class, it really helps you as well as others in class.

The academic environment at Illinois is great. If you're an incoming freshman and don't know what you want to study then Illinois is potentially in the top 5 best schools in the nation for you to attend, it has a wide curriculum and any major you end up choosing you can rest assured its not a bad program.

the lectures can be really large depending on your major, especially if your a freshman. but most lectures include a smaller discussion session that creates a setting similar to high school and allows for more active participation.