Quote:
Originally Posted by kevin gilmore
Papa Del's
Garcia's
White Horse
and Cow Tipping
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And don't forget the cows with holes in their stomachs.
Personally, I think UIUC is probably not only the best public engineering school but the best engineering school until you go out to the east or west coasts (just for argument let's say Pittsburgh is close enough to be east coast). The school has a history of achievements including inventing the LED, the process for sound in movies, the plasma TV, log-periodic antenna (the classic rooftop TV antenna), the LET (light emitting transistor, cool stuff), a year or two ago we invented the world's fastest transistor at the time, and we have been a center for supercomputing for decades (UIUC was the first educational institution to have a supercomputer). Former faculty include John Bardeen, inventer of the transistor and recipient of the Nobel Prize twice (transistor and superconductivity). John Bardeen pretty much established the ECE program back in the 1950's. In 2003 two faculty members received the Nobel Prize, one in Physics and I think the other in Chemistry. In fact, all three recipients of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2003 were at the University but only one is still here (I actually attended a seminar on quantum mechanics by him yesterday).
Other than UIUC, you're looking at places like CMU, Stanford, or MIT but it's more cost effective to goto UIUC. In addition, the fact that it stands alone in the midwest means that you get a lot of attention from companies in the Chicagoland area. For example, there were at least a half dozen trading firms that came down to find CS and Comp E's to do programming work (my roommate interviewed with one for a job when he graduates with his MS in CS and their starting pay was $90K but that's not indicative of the norm). I regularly see recruiters from companies like NVIDIA, IBM, INTEL, Microsoft, etc so the school does get a lot of attention.
The location isn't that bad. It's like an oasis in southern Illinois. We have the conveniences of what you would expect to find in surburbia. We have movie theaters, bars, clubs, cafes, bowling alleys, and a fairly large mall. Plus we're about 2.5 hour straight shot to Chicago so you can always go up there for day trips on the weekends (like head-fi meets). One thing I like about the area is that there's a nice R/C plane club here. Not only that, but a lot of the R/C companies are in the area (Great Planes, JR, Tower Hobbies) and I find that stuff pretty cool. We have a good athletics program, men's basketball is just breaking out this year and out tennis team has been ranked #1 for a few years. Being a large university there are still good opportunities outside of engineering. UIUC is one of the few schools with a veterinary school and has the third largest library of any educational institution in the country.
Anyway, the real point I try to make is that everyone and their brother has heard of MIT and Stanford and most technical people know about CMU. UIUC though is usually one that doesn't register with people but once I started coming here and talking to the faculty and people in the industry I get the impression that it has an excellent reputation. Pretty much though if you can get into any of the big four then choosing between them is pretty much up to your priorities. Specialization in specific fields is more applicable to graduate work unless you want to try and do some undergraduate research. Other factors would be location and costs and like you said, social opportunities. If you're into it, UIUC has the largest Greek (frat and sorority Greek) population in the US.
As to the bad, well, it can't compare to actually being in an urban center like Boston. And you'll get some of the Illinois winters here (but not as severe as in Chicago or Boston). I can't compare it to California cause I've never been there. The housing here is kinda old and can be expensive for what you get (you have shop around early and a lot). There are plenty of new apartment buildings so don't get me wrong, it's just that it can be frustrating to find a decent place when the entire housing community that's within a mile of campus focuses primarily on students.
