Northern Illinois University - Academics

Quick Stats

College Prowler Take

NIU may not feature the same world-class constellation of academic stars as a school like Harvard, but hey, our tuition costs about 3 SUVs less per year than an Ivy League school. Most students will tell that you get what you pay for in coming here. There aren’t many exceptional academic programs at NIU, and you will find few “pioneers of their fields” among the cornfields here. Still, the engineering and accounting programs have recently seen a spike in national recognition, and deservedly so. Required classes with little relevance to your career path are a major drag, but classes inside your major can be invigorating if you can tough it out to sophomore year. A few bad apples aside, there are many teachers who care about their jobs and their students with the same passion as professors at other schools with better academic reputations and more well-off students. It’s up to you to make the effort to come in for help when it is offered, which is fairly often. Lack of flexibility and heavy accents are common criticisms of faculty, but those problems exist on most any college campus. Professors and instructors sometimes have a tendency to hijack classroom discussions with their own agendas, political and otherwise. However, if you can get past these annoyances, you can get a good (though maybe not necessarily great) education at NIU.

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Students Speak Out

Anonymous says:

My interest in classes really... My interest in classes really varied by the subject. Sometimes a class was much more boring than I thought it sounded just going by the catalogue description. A class on King Arthur seemed like it would be entertaining at the very least, but somehow, it managed to turn into a three-hour class lectures on feminism and a few really bad movies. Two of my history classes bored me to tears despite my interest in the subject, while another history class will easily go down as one of my all-time favorites. As an English major, I found the classes on creative writing were excellent and a major help in improving as a writer. 12345 Academics Report

Anonymous says:

The classes are interesting, and I... The classes are interesting, and I get a lot out of most of them. However, there are some that are a waste of time and poorly taught, like a TA just reading off of PowerPoint slides. 12345 Academics Report

Anonymous says:

Overall, I have thought the... Overall, I have thought the teachers were good, save one or two that were subpar at best. I have heard from people that they have experienced problems with teachers that can barely speak English, so the communication problems between the student and instructor can be trying at times. 12345 Academics Report

Anonymous says:

Thus far, I have had quite a few... Thus far, I have had quite a few amazing teachers and a couple of mediocre ones. My experiences with the amazing ones were the most memorable because of the way they taught—the enthusiasm they had for their subject matter, the ways in which they utilized their resources, and also the way they got me to think. I label a few as mediocre because of the nature of their lectures and because of the mundane attitudes they had toward their subjects. 12345 Academics Report

Anonymous says:

I have way too many classes where... I have way too many classes where I can’t tell what’s coming out of a teacher’s mouth. I pay a lot of money to go to college, so I’d like the perk of being able to understand my teachers. Engineering and math classes are the worst. 12345 Academics Report

Facts

Did You Know?

It is almost impossible for a student to graduate without having composed at least one bibliography or works-cited page during their time at NIU. Some professors even require them for every assignment. Do yourself and favor and become acquainted with www.easybib.com, which is a free service that will format all your citations in MLA or APA style after you enter in the necessary data.

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