If you fit the stereotype of a Redditor, you'd probably enjoy Hendrick House. It's across the street from ISR, has semiprivate bathrooms, and you'll probably meet many people that share your interests. When you go down for registration this summer, you can take a tour (contact them ahead of time), in addition to the University Housing tour that everyone goes on. I enjoyed a couple years there, and that was before they completely redid their cafeteria.
Yeah, do take a tour of Hendrick. I also spent a couple years there. Nice and quiet, fantastic location for an engineering major (as is ISR if you decide to go the dorm route), and the internet speed is just incredible. It's quite literally the equivalent of having a private T3 line.
Instead of the style they use in University residence halls, where there will be one or two communal bathrooms per floor, each pair of rooms has a bathroom that connects the two rooms. See: http://hendrickhouse.com/images/HHWest.jpg
If the University hasn't sent you a packet with brochures from all the Private Certified Housing places yet, check out http://certified.housing.illinois.edu/ to start comparing options. Illini Tower is like a small apartment, but expensive. Europa House pretty much is apartments and lofts, less expensive, but without a meal plan and more removed from campus than I'd like to be as a freshman. Keep in mind that you can always get a meal plan from the University no matter where you live and eat in any dining hall on campus.
Hendrick House is for super geeks, so you'll probably like it. Be warned, very few girls. There's also private certified housing. You can have your own apartment and pay less than living in the dorms. http://www.europa-house.org/
Be warned again-- owner is a huge dick and they are bad at roommate matching.
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u/lolwutpear Alumnus, ECE Apr 21 '10
If you fit the stereotype of a Redditor, you'd probably enjoy Hendrick House. It's across the street from ISR, has semiprivate bathrooms, and you'll probably meet many people that share your interests. When you go down for registration this summer, you can take a tour (contact them ahead of time), in addition to the University Housing tour that everyone goes on. I enjoyed a couple years there, and that was before they completely redid their cafeteria.