Honestly I have mixed feelings about the school. There's stuff to like but I feel out of place a lot of the time. I've been a combination of blue and busy lately, but I should probably check out Beckman and NCSA and some other stuff.
No car and no dates as of late. :P
318 (I think it's 418 now, with Hart this semester) seems cool.
1. Don't skimp on where you live (live in a good place in a great location like right above Murphy's). The rent seems like a lot when you're a student, but in hindsight it's the best deal you'll ever get. Don't live far away from north campus to save money.
2. The ACM at UIUC is pretty amazing, they have a secret lab underneath DCL where they have every thing you could ever want to build a robot, hack on Arduino (I think I salvaged a HP oscilloscope).
3. If you're looking for some more money - there are a lot of companies out by Assembly Hall (motorola etc). Good jobs/pay, really painful to get to.
College is definitely an adjustment but I found my groups I enjoyed hacking with, going to Brothers' with, going to Murphy's with and got a lot out of the experience.
1. Being OOS, money is slightly more of an issue to me, so saving money to live somewhat further way seems like exactly something I may need to end up doing, but I'll see if the difference really matters.
2. I should really start hanging out in the acm office more...might fix (mitigate) some of the problems I have with the school.
3. Well, like I mentioned, I'm at wolfram right now, with pretty decent pay, so I think I'm sticking with that for a while.
My grandparents took me as a kid, and it made an incredibly lasting impression.
Congrats on attending UIUC, I really loved the school and got a lot out of going there. Is Wolfram still on Neil St? I loved that amongst the car dealerships and Meijers was this mecca of mathematics and technology.
In terms of things to do:
- I highly recommend you join the Engineering Freshman Committee and the EOH group, I was the chair of that group and we were given $2000 to do whatever we want (we built a lightbulb unscrewing robot to compete at EOH). It was definitely one of the best experiences of my life ($2k in college seemed like an infinite pool of money).
- Start poking around Beckman Center, I did lots of interesting research there and it still puts out some really cool stuff that freshman can get involved with.
- If you can get a car and need to impress a date, Curtis Orchard is really pretty right now.
- I loved the 318/319 courses and wish I had taken it earlier, when I was there Garland and Hart were there and I wish I had a chance to take more classes in that track.
Best of luck!