Local Opinions About IIT? (Chicago: neighborhood, school, university)

[linicx]

I'm tossing in my two cents fwiw. I had occassion to speak to some architechs in my area about a roofing problem. In addition a dear friend with a BSEE is a retired system designer. We spend a lot of time kicking the can about engineering, math, architecture. I know a tiny about the subject. The best architectural firm in my area - not Chicago - is well rounded in every area of commercial and residential engineering and architecture. They charge $200 per hour from office to job site to return.to office. These men all loved the job and enjoy a good life. The engineer did comment that in his job he did use all the accelerated math at one tine or the other = including Calculus. Welcome to Chicago!

[ronnin]

Skractchmo, I think you reffered to my review with the "is definitely not a shortage of second rate professors as the above post would have you believe" and as long as we are not in the same program it's difficult to compare. However, I would like to say what is a good teacher for me: a good teacher is not just the one who went to MIT, Virgina Tec, Stanford, etc... but a good teacher is the one who knows how transmit and is confident in what he/she is saying. For example, one of my teachers uses internet material to make the lectures keeping the typos and mistakes it has without knowing the answer. For me, not being able to prepare own material shows low compromise with the students. An expert has to be good enough to be able to set up the lectures using different sources. Of course, the theacher can copy and use other's lecures, but at least, this teacher should know what is wrong in those sheets.

Nothing to say about the corwded classes. I have spent one semester in extrachairs because the class was so crowded that they didn't have enough room, having to write in a hard folder because those chairs didn't have an "arm-table". It's oposite to what the say in their website (not crowded classes).

I want to add that I have done lots of friends, and of course, there are different opinion, but one that i have heard the most is: disappointment. Some of them are doing "Proffesional Master" and they expected to learn something more useful for the real world than just some demonstrations. So they are paying just for repiting courses they took in theire undergraduate.

Finally I want to add that now I have visited other university campus and taken some classes to check them. IIT campus looks old compared with DePaul and UIC, and nothing to say compared with University of California campus.

So my advice is, if you can come here in advance to check different campus and take some classes to se how they are, it won't be a waste of money. Consider this trip as an invesment to assure your choice.

[skratchmo]

I hear what you're saying ronnin. It is difficult to compare professors from different majors. The MMAE department overall though I think has excellent professors (however there are a couple bad ones which is inevitable). What was/is your major?

I'll agree with you that the majority of the opinions of the school as a whole probably is disappointment. I'll also agree that the campus looks old except for SSV and the MTCC. It's a historic Mies Van Der Rohe campus though. There's not much you can do about that. I can't compare the courses I took at IIT to anywhere else but I would assume they are on par with what other universities are offering. The grad courses for the MMAE program are a little bit review of undergrad material but overall they're more advanced versions of undergrad. They go deeper into the material and present all the stuff the professor told you wasn't important in undergrad. Plus, there is a whole host of new material being taught as well. But again this only my experience with the MMAE department.

And to the original poster: Definitely come and check out the school and sit in on a class in your major. Take a tour of the campus. Talk to students while you're there and get their opinions.

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by skratchmo

I'll also agree that the campus looks old except for SSV and the MTCC. It's a historic Mies Van Der Rohe campus though.

Crown Hall has never looked better since it's recent rennovation by Krueck and Sexton. For pretty much any architecture student, the Mies-designed IIT campus is a postive benefit of IIT.

[via chicago]

[skratchmo]

Originally Posted by Lookout Kid

Crown Hall has never looked better since it's recent rennovation by Krueck and Sexton. For pretty much any architecture student, the Mies-designed IIT campus is a postive benefit of IIT.

True. I forgot about Crown Hall .

[ronnin]

I'm in ECE.

I think for an arquitect (or for anyone), the most important is not the building he is sitting, but the teacher who is in front of him. I think this is a direct implication: if the teacher is good but the building is old, then it doesn't matter so much. But this does not work in the other way, if you are sitting on a building desing by the most important architect ever, but teacher is not motivated in showing you good material, it DOES matter.

As a whole, IIT has more negative than positive things: old buildings, some not deeply motivated on teaching teachers (but in their investigations), graduate programs are generic, despite their "cool" names.

One I think is the worst and this didn't happened just to me but to many of other studets, was that advisors don't know differences btween the amount of "cool" masters they are offering. So if you need an advice about the differents masters on the same deparment, the best is ask last year students instead of the advisor. They will provide more information than the advisor.

[ravivg]

I went to IIT and I agree with most of what skratchmo said. The Arch. detp. has a very good rep in Chicago, and indeed
in one point was ranked top 15 nationally; although I would avoid rankings as they are all biased. But here's the main
problem of the school -- Arch. is the only known program, unfortunately.

I came to IIT as a foreign student for graduate studies back in 2005. I think that today the campus is x3 nicer than back then.
When I came to IIT there were 1-2 places to drink/eat on campus. Now there are many new places, mainly thanks to the new
constructions near the baseball park. There's even a bar with a bowling alley... I think in general the school is going in the right direction:
1. Excellent faculty members have joined - IIT exploited the faculty hiring freeze in most places and hired some great people.
2. New technology park opened with space for start-ups.
3. A new $30M innovation center was announced a few weeks ago. That's a good sign, they are trying to build
a start-up community like in other tech school in the country.

IIT, unlike other schools, have the potential to be an excellent tech school. Chicago is a big city and IIT is the only real tech school around. UIUC is too far away. It can be the main hub for start-up companies. The program is that Chicago is not a tech city, but it has the potential to become one. Maybe if IIT gets better...

BTW, someone mentioned there are no Americans -- that's true only in the graduate program; the vast majority of undergrads are Americans from all over the country.

Now, with that being said, I wouldn't pick IIT again (with the exception of Arch.) for the following reasons:

1. It's in a bad area like others mentioned (although improving). It's however in a much better area than
UC in Hyde Park which is an island in south Chicago with very high crime rates and not connected with the L.
IIT's campus is two stops from downtown after all, with 3! train stops on campus - green, red, and Metra. so it's great
for commuters (I lived in Bridgeport for a year and then moved north). UC however compensates its bad
location with a prestigious name.

2. The campus itself is quite small and safe; however, it's a boring campus with not much of social life. Part of
it is its proximity to down town Chicago; the school culture is another factor. I personally prefer college towns
where you feel you're part of a community.

3. Chicago is a beautiful city but it sucks to live there these days. Gangs and crime activity are a major problem
and it's getting worse (mainly in UC and UIC areas). I left Chicago and will not move back (but I like visiting).

4. The school is not known outside of Chicago - not academically and not for other reasons like sports. Although
it wasn't a problem for me to find a job in my field, and all my friends from IIT found jobs in Google and other great
companies (it's still a tech school and you won't have a problem to get a job), but it still sucks when people never
heard about your school.

If they keep improving in the same pace as they have been in last year, then in 10 - 15 it might be indeed a great
tech school to go to. It also depends how Chicago evolves as a city, and the area around IIT in particular. It will never
be MIT or Stanford but I don't see a reason why it cannot be a top 40 tech school in the country.

Hope this helps.

[ravivg]

Oh, I forgot, in case you were using Bing, it might be an old campus, but how many schools had the honor
to be on Google's logo for 24 hours?
Google Doodle honours architecture pioneer Ludwig Mies van der Rohe - New Media - New Media | siliconrepublic.com - Ireland's Technology News Service

[emathias]

Originally Posted by ravivg

...
But here's the main
problem of the school -- Arch. is the only known program, unfortunately.
...
The program is that Chicago is not a tech city, but it has the potential to become one. Maybe if IIT gets better
...

I have to strongly disagree with you on both points.

I work for a tech-based financial industry startup. We actively recruited at IIT and have hired a number of recent grads from there precisely because they have solid tech instruction and significantly above average financial (particularly trading and financial engineering) instruction. I also had a developer coworker who left to pursue a masters in financial engineering there who now works as a trader for a well-known trading firm in New York. IIT has a strong reputation in those areas. Someone else complained about there being too many foreign students, and to that I'll point out that one of our recent hires with a masters from IIT had his bachelor's degree from a Chinese school that's basically China's closest equivalent to MIT. They might be foreign, but that doesn't make them any less smart than Americans.

Second, Chicago is not Silicon Valley but it is much more of a tech city than many people give it credit for. The fact that it's not *only* a tech city doesn't mean it doesn't have good tech bones. I've made my living in tech in Chicago for most of the past 17 years. In that time I've worked for two different tech startups - and the successful cash-out of the options from the first start-up paid for the home I live in so it's not just the Silicon Valley doing successful stock option plays for employees - and that was 10 years ago, pre-Groupon-hype. I've also worked for a tech company that was number one in its niche, I've worked for a non-profit that heavily used tech to meet its goals, and I've worked for the trading divisions of two major financial players that were heavily dependent on their use of technology to create and maintain their edge. If you think Chicago isn't a tech city, then either you don't know what tech is or you don't know Chicago.

Originally Posted by ronnin

...
One I think is the worst and this didn't happened just to me but to many of other studets, was that advisors don't know differences btween the amount of "cool" masters they are offering. So if you need an advice about the differents masters on the same deparment, the best is ask last year students instead of the advisor. They will provide more information than the advisor.

This is a pretty generic statement. My significant other has gone to three Universities while we've been together. He's finishing his doctorate at UIUC currently. I met him after he finished his bachelors. I also have a bachelors and am finishing up my own masters at a well-known university based in Cambridge, Mass. Between us, we've talked to advisors in six different universities, four of them globally known. And you know what - advisors in most universities don't know what they're advising about very well. It's just a sad fact of academic life that students at any university can't trust their advisor to give them accurate information about classes or, often, even the programs they're in.

Of course it's nice to think that some advisors in some universities know what they're doing, but that's rarely been my experience or that of my partner. So unknowledgable advisors at IIT, to me, doesn't mean much of anything.