Anybody know anything about this joint? Is it a good place to learn, is it a sham, how are the teachers, does going there seem to help with getting a job, etc?

I am a graduate of IIT. Class of '89. My degree is BS in Mechanical Engineering. I started my college career at Michigan Tech University, but transferred to IIT after my 2nd year of school for a variety of reasons. It was one of the best decisions I've ever made...life changing. Or creating, actually because everything I have and do now is a direct result of my going to IIT. Something would have happened had I gotten my education elsewhere, but the life I lead now is what I wanted and I got it.

When I attended it was a quality institution if you measure that by things like direct access to your professors, small classes, diverse and intelligent student body, facilities, etc. The Scarlet Hawks ain't gonna set the NCAA on it's ear in anything; fortunately the student body don't care. Much of the population commutes, as I did. I've spent no time in the new buildings on campus, so can't comment on them. I don't know what you seek to study. I can say this about the school: people that hire for engineering postions? THEY know about IIT. Most of the public equates it with late night ads for a place called ITT Technical Institute. I can't count the number of casual acquiantences that have given me shit for that, but nobody in the professional engineering world has. It's a full on Engineering University that I would put up against the best the midwest has to offer, and I mean Purdue, Rose Hulman, U of I Urbana, Univ. of Cincinnati, and any others you might choose.

Know this about undergraduate engineering education: it is designed to make you a graduate student, NOT a working engineer. That was, and continues to be, my biggest beef. In fairness, it's very hard to teach practical pipe design or industrial hydraulics or project management to a class full of people. And even at IIT, the pure manufacturing experience of some of the staff is lacking. But manufacturing just happens to be my focus in life. Maybe it ain't yours, and the more theoretical appeals to you. I guess I'm trying to say that "real world" engineering education happens in the real world, not in school. School gets you ready and gets you into the real world. Take it for that and run.

In some ways (because of my desire to work in a factory not an office) I hated school and how it missed my particular boat. I had to grit my teeth to get through it, I lived like shit, worked a restaurant job as well as shifts in the steel mill to help pay for it...in many ways it was the worst part of my life. What that effort, and the fact that I expended it at a place like IIT got me though? Can't measure that.

Good luck with your decision...

Two of my students have decided on IIT and both have had positive experiences. Plus you can catch a Sox game after class.

The ID at IIT has an illustrious history:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Bauhaus

Mies van der Rohe taught there and designed some of the campus buildings... that alone gets my vote!

bfields wrote:Two of my students have decided on IIT and both have had positive experiences. Plus you can catch a Sox game after class.

My friend Justin goes here. He likes it. I'm sure he'll get a good job. He also enjoys going to Sox games. He's on the Scarlet Hawks baseball team, too. Not even my school, UW-Madison, has that.

I got accepted at IIT (today) as a grad student in my favorite subject of all time - electrical engineering. I did not think I'd get in. It's a surprise.
Right now I'm going to grad school for free in a great program but it's not EE. It's a program I really like and makes me feel creative and comes much more easily to me and I can make a lot of money. I am passionate about signal processing though, not human computer interaction.

My ma says I should stick with the free program, make some money, then go back for my MSEE.

My best friend says I should jump ship, switch courses, etc to follow my destiny.

It's just going around and around and around in my head and I thought I'd just air it to get some perspective. I know it's kind of a personal derail to this thread, and I apologize. But you guys are great with career/school advice.
Any thoughts?

Human computer interaction for free vs. Signal processing for not free...

?!

Here comes a troll
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I got my BS in EE from UWMilwaukee. Starting year #2 of my MS in IT at Northwestern in the fall. Got straights A's so far.

Someday when I'm your boss you can shine my shoes.

BadComrade wrote:Don't forget John Cage and Buckminster Fuller.

I know a guy that went there. I think he'd say it was a great decision.

IIT used to have an awesome photo program, anchoring the "Chicago School" of photography with Aaron Siskand and Harry Callahan both teaching there. Unfortunately, that department has been in decline and they cut the graduate photo program sometime in the late 90's. My thesis advisor at UIC, Joe Jachna, was a graduate student of Siskand and Callahan, which I thought was super cool =)

I think they still have a good Graphic Design program, and their architecture program is still one of the tops in the country. I would imagine it's up there in prestige for engineering as well.

Gramsci wrote:Mies van der Rohe taught there and designed some of the campus buildings... that alone gets my vote!

My dad was an architecture student at IIT during the Mies years. He said they called him "the old man." Also, he (MY old man) did the following impression of Mies:

[Folds hands behind his back, paces around muttering at feet] "Gloss und shteel, ja, dot's da deal!"

The old man (mine, again) went to a lot of Sox games during his time there, apparently, so you have that going for you, if you are there during the summer months and are at all into the baseball.