The University of Illinois Urbana - Champaign

I Just wanted to respond specifically to the claim that you cannot do cross-college majors. This is completely false; I know because I am graduating in the fall with an engineering degree and a liberal arts degree. I am almost positive that there are also business college/liberal arts programs, and business college/engineering programs. The person who made the above claim may have just hit a lemon of an administrator, probably in the LAS college.

What this person should have done is talk to other administrators in that college office as well as in the other college's office to try and find a way to make it work.

Take this as a lesson if you come here -- the size of the administration is an asset, not a liability. If someone (i.e., an ornery administrator) tells you that you cannot do something or that something is 'not possible', go find another administrator. There are a hundred mid-level admin people sitting at computers and (often) any one of them can clear you to do something.

I guess on a more general note, you can see this sort of thinking in most of the negative comments here. People who say the town 'sucks' (hundreds of student organizations, bars, clubs, etc.) obviously didn't look very hard to find things to do. People who say the faculty is 'inaccessible' (they all hold office hours but few students ever attend them) obviously didn't try to access them. People who say everyone (in a university community of 40,000?) is 'close-minded' clearly didn't try very hard to meet people whose ideas were more similar to their own.

Bottom line -- nobody will hold your hand here. If you need to be coddled, this is definitely not the place to be. But if you are interested in exploring new experiences on your own and 'finding yourself' in college, it is a wonderful place. You can have close relationships with faculty members, do independent research, make lots of friends, participate in more activities than you could imagine, and find something interesting to do every night. You just have to get off your butt and show up.And considering that the 'real world' beyond college offers very little in the way of coddling, it seems like this would be a good skill to learn in college, yes?

4th Year Male -- Class 2007

Education Quality: A+, Campus Maintenance: B-

The engineering and science programs at the U. of I. are some of the very best in the world, expect to be constantly surrounded by leading edge technology and research.

1st Year Male -- Class 2007

Education Quality: A+, Individual Value: B-