Over spring break, I decided to visit my friend who goes to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, also known as UIUC. Had I not chosen CU Boulder, UIUC would’ve been the place I call home. The campus is slightly bigger than CU’s and is more integrated into the city, whereas CU’s campus happens to have it’s academic buildings separated from the rest of Boulder. The weather is also quite different there. If you’re from Illinois, you know that the sun is seldom out during the winter seasons, and the wind is incredibly strong.
Despite the 1700 acres of campus, UIUC’s campus is incredibly walkable, very similar to CU Boulder’s campus. During my time there, I walked over 25,000 steps over the course of two days. The campus buildings are integrated within the city: in some areas, an academic building is right across the street from a restaurant. UIUC’s signature area is Green Street, which is a mashup of The Hill and Pearl Street in Boulder.
Green Street is the only stop for all the students of UIUC, which is incredibly necessary seeing as how there isn’t anything for miles outside of the campus. You have restaurants, such as Jimmy Johns and Taco Bell, as well as a convenient Target store, additional student housing, and of course, the party scene.
During my visit, I indulged in UIUC’s party scene, which happens to be very different from CU’s scene. At CU, our weekend begins on Thirsty Thursday, which is typically hosted by the frats. However, at UIUC, their Thirsty Thursdays are hosted at Joe’s, one of the bar’s that are on Green Street.
The bar scene and the frat scene are both very different, but quite similar. For one, it is PACKED—full of people stepping on each other’s toes, shoving into each other, nasty floors, and lots of sweaty dancing. However, at the bar, you are required to purchase drinks, whereas at frats, you don’t. At frat parties though, getting in as a guy is much harder—you have to either worry about wristbands, which range from $20-$50, or ratio your way in, where you basically need to bring a ton of girls with you in order to get in. At the bars at UIUC, as long as you are Champaign legal (i.e you’re over the age of 19 with a valid ID), you can get in, regardless of your gender.
Overall, my visit to UIUC was pretty fun. Shoutout to my wonderful friend who gave me a wonderful tour of the campus and got me to dip my toes into the party scene at UIUC.