What is Urbana-Champaign like?

Is there a lot happening at Urbana-Champaign, or do a lot of students drive in to Chicago on the weekend?

It’s a three hour drive…

Well, there’s Green St which is the typical restaurant/bar district that may large universities have.

St Louis is about a 3 hour drive. Indianapolis is about 2 hours away.

Otherwise, it’s farmland all around.

As users previously stated do not expect to be heading out to the big cities on a regular basis. Chicago is not really close to the campus at all. That being said, it has a nice college town feel with a variety of things to do like any other large university.

There is plenty to do on campus. When i was a student there, I could always find something. No need to go to Chicago.

There is enough to do. A lot of it is centered around booze, but there are many non-booze activities you can do too.

You guys have got to be kidding me? A day trip to Chicago is eminently doable…Amtrak will get you into downtown Chicago by 9am, and back to Champaign after spending the day in a world-class city by 6:15pm for $44 roundtrip. You don’t want, or need a car to get anywhere in the city. Spend the day touring the Art Institute, Field Museum or Shedd Aquarium. Check out the observation deck in the John Hancock tower. Visit Millennium Park, Buckingham fountain. Watch a Cubs or Sox game. Take a seat at the United Center for the Bulls or watch the Stanley Cup Champion Blackhawks kick some tail. And then be back in Champaign…for dinner.

I love UC. The mall is large and not packed, compared to those in Chicago, and there some really great restaurants there. Quaint towns. I did my visit in one day EASILY… And I’m right outside of Chicago. We left my house at 7 and made it there in two and a half hours. I was home by 6.

Chicago is not convenient but it’s doable.
The campus is in an area of Illinois that is all farms for miles around. There is town that lives because of the school. It has decent stores and restaurants but things to do will be primarily campus related.

@musiclover131 You briefly mentioned a mall, could you speak more on that? I’m not really a party and drinking kind of person, but I do love to shop, so I would love to learn more about that.

Yeah! Sure! I was there for some Black Friday shopping, and while it was crowded, it was not more crowded than my usual shopping mall, which is probably 20 miles from downtown Chicago. There’s a really good selection of stores. Maybe not an amazing selection, but a lot better than I predicted. Here’s the website:
http://www.marketplacemall.com/en.html

It appeared that there were a lot of high school and college kids working there.

There’s also movie theatres, free-standing stores, strip malls, etc. The downtown is very cute, but I didn’t have much time to walk around. I just drove through it a few times. There’s a lot to do off campus, but the town basically survives off of UIUC. I think there’s like 300K people in the twin cities, not including the 40K on campus. It’s definitely the biggest town within 50 miles of there.

Also, side note, I wanted to go to DePaul for business because it is in Chicago and I feared that UC would be boring. After visiting, I feel that UC will keep me entertained, and I can still drive up to Chicago like once a month-ish :slight_smile: