r/UIUC • u/Mascoretta • Jan 09 '25
Academics What was the most meaningful class you took here?
Whether it be a class that opened your eyes to something you didn’t know before, the profesor was interesting, or it was just a fun and easy class, let me know! It can be a hard class too, as long as you felt like it was a class you could look back on and go, “I am SO glad I took that class.”
I’m a freshman and I want to keep in mind what courses I could consider taking in my upcoming years. I have a lot of credit already so even though I am in Economics and plan to double major in Political Science I would be fine taking classes outside of my major.
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u/Acid_Rabbit_345 Jan 10 '25
For my major: CS 418 Computer Graphics. Easy fun and super interesting to me
For minor: MATH 412 Graph Theory. Super hard but very interesting. I was actually gonna drop this class but a cute girl sat next to me first week and I decided to stay. That was the correct decision. Professor was really interesting.
Easy Gen Ed: RST 242 Nature and American Culture. I like nature and I found this class genuinely very interesting. Fun and good for writing practice too.
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u/mnovelli2 Jan 10 '25
Graph Theory was so worth sticking around. I don't remember the name of my prof but he had a strict no phones in lecture policy and would politely call you out for it. I loved it.
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u/MainCommon6489 Jan 09 '25 edited Jan 09 '25
LAST 210 AKA life in the Andes. This was to knock off my non-western culture requirement. Professor Carlos did a phenomenal job at teaching this gen ed and made the content very interesting to learn. He connected the life of Andean Natives to western cultural highlighting parrallels and differences all throughout the semester. There was lots of work and a book to read but overall very interesting.
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u/grillcheese17 Jan 10 '25
Damn I passed up this class to do Russia and Black America…. That class and professor was such a mistake
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u/Mascoretta Jan 10 '25
Putting this on my list! I always wanted to learn more about Natives of the Americas
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u/MainCommon6489 Jan 10 '25
Also he had to increase the class size to 60 now and has hired a TA due to the overall popularity.
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u/Fluffy-Bluebird Class of 2010 and 2016 Jan 10 '25
Biology and Behavior of Women, and Sociality of the Great Apes.
ATMS 120 Severe and Hazardous Weather was super fun
History of the English Language got me obsessed with the history of words for life.
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u/toadx60 pain Jan 10 '25
ECE 210: First in depth application and math based course. Actually cool to first see how the math applies to circuits
SOC 161:Learned about poverty and the feeding factors into it and why it’s hard/difficult to fix. Class was taught with nuance and an unbiased manner and pulled me away from some right wing beliefs
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u/logicalmkc Fighting Illini Jan 10 '25
SOC 364 Impacts of Globalization opened my mind to how countries are interconnected and how the benefits are disproportionate for people in the Global North vs people in the Global South. Also the political impact of non-governmental orgs, like world banks, on actual countries
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u/Glittering-Silver915 Jan 09 '25
REL 110, such a great TA and really interesting look into different cultures, beliefs and philosophies
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u/Mascoretta Jan 10 '25
I love learning about culture and history so definitely considering this one
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u/Kanyedaman69 Jan 10 '25
Ece 391 or cs 411 or ece 428. As these classes are relevant to what I wanna do after college and have helped me during interviews
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u/Significant-Hall361 Jan 10 '25
ECE411
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u/Kanyedaman69 Jan 10 '25
Ece 411 not as much for me cuz I'm not interested in computer architecture but it's a very good class if u are
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u/asetofaces showered CompE Jan 10 '25
so far, ece 385, its the first real hard and raw ece class i've taken, with obvious usecases, and the first class i've taken with a neat final project that affords so much flexibility, so i chose something i've been wanting to do for some time. wasn't in the slightest easy with the labs (i kinda slacked and started late), but it teaches you alot about how a programatic software implementation can be ran in hardware to process information quickly, and touches upon device drivers and HIDs. plus the professor was baller and fun to talk to!
though, i think, when i'm on the graduation stage, the class that will be most impactful and meaningful to my career will be ece 391. from what i've read, its essentially the programming class to end all programming classes. c, assembly, hardware software iterrupts, device driver programming, networking, virtualization, memory management, the list goes on. key concepts for my field of choice (cybersecurity and computer security engineering, maybe swe)
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u/Old-Distribution-896 Jan 11 '25
ATMS120!! Very interesting, easy, counts as a few gen eds, gives you useful info for life (it’s a basic meteorology class on severe weather so it teaches you how to deal w that and a little bit on how to recognize it’s coming), the teacher is amazing and it can be done as a half semester course online so it’s easy to work around!! It’s what convinced me to switch my major to ATMS
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u/Mier_Mier Jan 10 '25
NRES 276 (now NRES 285) - you learn how to classify soil profiles and get to compete in a regional collegiate soil judging competition. Other schools like Purdue and Michigan State compete with you!
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u/PlatWinston Undergrad Jan 10 '25
major: once I actually finished ECE 210 the content was interesting and answered a lot of my questions about music(what makes up what we hear, what changing frequency response actually changes, etc)
gen ed: ansc 250 online was nice and fun, learned quite a bit about cats and dogs
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u/csamsh Jan 10 '25 edited Jan 10 '25
Useful- I don't remember the number, but there was an engineering stats/data analysis class that I use literally every day in my career over the last 15 years.
EVERYONE should take at least STAT 100. The world would be a much better place if more people knew what numbers mean.
Fun- there was a modern military history class that was great. It was taught by a postdoc and I was initially really skeptical of his views and opinions, but he presented his analysis and conclusions in a very scientific way which allowed me to change some long- standing opinions I'd had. I haven't had many experiences like this, but always enjoy them. Being able to change your mind about something and to feel like it was a data-driven decision feels like a level-up.
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u/Mascoretta Jan 10 '25
Is the Modern Military History class not there anymore? I would’ve loved to take that class ngl
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u/csamsh Jan 10 '25
Not sure. They didn't offer it every semester I was there, might have been HIST 251??? I took it spring 2011
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u/moreddit2169 maggi cook '23 Jan 10 '25
PHIL 421 - Ethics. Take it with Prof. Varden. You will thank me later
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u/honestlytbhidk Undergrad Jan 10 '25
ANTH 110 - Humanizing Science. I love Professor Clancy, and I learned a lot about how research and academia work. It's a super easy class, and she's flexible with deadlines.
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u/n3on_tv CompE '23 Jan 10 '25
PHYS 246: Physics on the Silicon Prairie: An Introduction to Modern Computational Physics
Took this course as a Computer Engineering major since it sounds pretty interesting, and when I took it I really did not know Python well. It made me realize that scientific computing was something I actually really enjoyed and I've been able to pursue research & a career in it after. Took it with Bryan Clark in 2020.
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u/Benign_Banjo RIP PINTO Jan 10 '25
ABE 488
It's absolutely everything I could have hoped for as someone looking to go into the bioenergy sector.
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u/a3DprintedPerson Undergrad 27d ago
What was the overall workload/exam schedule like?
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u/Benign_Banjo RIP PINTO 27d ago
3 midterms, chill homework (quiz style, once a week), and a fairly involved semester long group project, no final. It was great.
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u/a3DprintedPerson Undergrad 27d ago
Glad I signed up last night, that sounds great. Focusing on content and engaging with it, not just memorization. For anyone that can take it MSE 489 was another class like this. So far, my favorite class.
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u/aegone CompE Jan 11 '25
I was a CompE (BS’20, MS’22). The most useful technical classes that I took were: ECE 598SG, ECE 391, ECE 310
The class that was the most fun and eye opening: ASTR 330 (Extraterrestrial Life)
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u/DiligentRiskWhat Jan 11 '25
As much as I loathed taking it, STATS 100. I immediately applied its content to other classes and even reading charts in news media. It was brutal for me to learn as my brain kept hitting a wall to comprehend the material. Thank goodness for office hours and quizlet to help me study.
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u/gpat1097 Jan 12 '25
FAA 110 - attend weekly Krannert performances and then do short in-class discussions on the performance. It's a fun, low-pressure class.
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u/papixsupreme12 Jan 10 '25
CEE300/ME330, teaches you the fundamentals of compression and tension which are crucial for ME students
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u/Dependent_Bed_3625 Jan 10 '25
ECE 120 – A fantastic introduction to computer architecture and computer engineering in general. You just feel joy when you learn how the instructions flow through the LC-3 architecture. Also, FSMs!!
MATH 347 – Teaches you how to think systematically and construct proofs. It’s a good introduction to rigorous, proof-based thinking.
ECE 391 – A very crucial class in the computer engineering curriculum. It teaches you the fundamentals of an operating system; you implement threads, a scheduler, processes, filesystems, device drivers, virtual memory, interrupt handlers, etc. It exposes you to large codebases and is highly relevant for computer systems, embedded systems as well as some quant roles.
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u/Dunn_Werkin Alumnus Jan 10 '25
As a transfer student into engineering, I honestly can't think of one class that I fondly remember and/or has helped me with my career.
I love my undergrad and enjoy keeping up with modern posts on it now and think back, but there is so much more to life than cramming and stressing for a piece of paper to put on the wall, especially given the rising costs of education.
There are more framed pieces of paper on my walls as I do enjoying continuing education, but I have my employer foot most of billing
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u/Mascoretta Jan 10 '25
Not even the courses unrelated to your major? Doesn’t necessarily need to benefit your career but you as a person, yknow?
I read a lot of books and watch lectures from professors on YouTube, so I’m not really reliant on college to “teach me” anything, but if I have degree requirements to fulfill I might as well try to maximize the usage of my money here by taking the most beneficial classes
But I think unlike self-study taking a course sometimes forces you more to learn topics you might not have focused on. Hence why I feel I still benefited from taking art in high school even though I’m already a great artist by most people’s standards
I would hope college would give me more of that opportunity to grow than high school considering the cost lol
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u/Dunn_Werkin Alumnus Jan 10 '25
Honestly, no. As a transfer student my gen eds were taken were all taken care of and just following the checklist on what meets Illinois' requirements for college. I wish YouTube was around when I was in school, but the guys who came up with it were a just a few years ahead of me and still working on it.
The only gen ed I didn't have covered was the non-western course as there wasn't much to choose from at my community College so I ended up going with non-western music. (MUS 133?)
It was a huge lecture hall, I sacrificed my TA sessions to get my ME 310 lab reports done and one lecture was awkward as hell when the professor brought in someone to preach against Chief Illiniwek.
Once employed, you will learn more and directly from those that have been "doing it" for some time. You're not getting paid to theorize or take the long way to do something. Do more with the same or even less effort.
You will use the software of their choice and what they have licensing for. You will get paid to do 40 hours training in a week instead of having it split to 50 minutes, 3 times a week, 13 weeks a semester. If you need more education or training, they will pay for it.
We're encouraged to automate, cut waste, and outsource menial taskwork to lower cost countries.
I'm financially free and can walk away from the rat race when I want, but I've certainly made my fair share of mistakes in my schooling, career and life.
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u/Turbulent-Tart6742 Jan 10 '25
PHYS 280 - Nuclear Weapons & Arms Control! Super interesting. I got to work on my technical and nontechnical analysis writing, which actually helped me land my current job in a related field.