<p>The one thing that turned me off about UIUC a few months ago was the whole ‘state university’ thing, 30k students, and massive classes. I know that as you go on, junior and senior year are generally much smaller classes but I still don’t know about the professors.</p>
<p>I like doing extra research, working on projects, and things like that and I’d like to continue it in UIUC but I don’t know much about the general attitude of the professors. Are they really stand-offish “I-don’t-give-a-damn” or are they relatively approachable? I know you can’t make many generalization but I’m just asking for a vague picture.</p>
<p>This is what ************** says about academics at UIUC</p>
<p>"If you need assistance, teachers strongly encourage you to see them. They find a way to get you into their office, to work with you one-on-one, and to answer any questions you might have.”</p>
<p>And this is what Princetonreview says</p>
<p>"Despite the school’s considerable size, professors and administrators here earn wide praise. One student writes, “I think everyone is professional and academic. It surprises me that a large school can be run like a small one.” Another agrees, “Keeping in mind that there are roughly 29,000 undergraduates, the school’s administrators do a decent job of keeping everything together.” And the school’s size certainly has its benefits; one undergrad notes, “There are so many opportunities to get involved and so many opportunities to build connections and work with professors.”</p>
<p>From the freshman perspective, I can certainly agree with aj16’s post. I too expected large classes with personality-less professors and a high degree of anonymity, but I was happily surprised. Yes the classes are large, but I’ve had professors who are extremely outgoing and really try to know their students. I’m in several lectures of 100-200 where professors actually chat with students before class, know many of their names (in one of my classes of 200-300, the professor knows the majority of the students’ names,) and are very approachable and helpful at their office hours.</p>
<p>In general, I’d say most of them are pretty helpful and accessible. I had one professor that knew every single person’s name in a class of about 250. She’d come around and talk and show up to labs and everything. Some professors seem like they really want to help and will stay after class to answer questions, I had one that seemed like he was practically begging you to come to office hours. I’ve also had a couple professors/TAs that didn’t seem so helpful. They’ll tell you to only come by appointment or tell you their office hours but say not to come unless you contact them first. I guess that’s because in some classes (especially smaller ones) no one shows up to office hours. But anyway, I’d say most professors are somewhere in between those two examples.</p>
<p>This is good to know. I was intimidated by the sheer size of UIUC, but to be honest, it’s not so bad once you get use to it. I was looking hard at smaller state schools in Illinois (NIU, EIU) since they were a lot smaller and advertised student-teacher interaction. The kids back at home that I’ve been talking to said UIUC was way too big for them and immediately crossed it off their college list.</p>
<p>First of all, I think that choosing NIU, SIU, etc. over UIUC is a bad idea, especially if it’s based on the notion that the class sizes interrupt teacher to student interaction.</p>
<p>Secondly, it’s true that the profs of huge lecture halls are pretty approachable. Office hours definitely help, and teachers are even willing to pause the lecture altogether if someone asks a question. However, I have one lecture hall prof who is ridiculously unhelpful and acts callous and elitist when someone approaches him in office hours or otherwise.</p>