University of Illinois

I arrived at the University of Illinois on the 21st of January, the day before classes started for the Spring semester of 2014. The US school year begins in August/September, right after summer break.So I arrived in the middle of the school year after their winter break.
I was greeted at the airport by my room mates of the sorority house I am living in (more on that in another post), and by temperatures of -20 degree Celsius!

Snow covered paths around uni

Snow plough at uni

The next day I met with Dr. Shike, who will be my supervising professor for my time at U of I. As well as being on the Livestock Judging team as part of the Angus Australia Scholarship, I also take classes. I am taking ANSC100 Introduction to Animal Science, which is designed to give new students a brief overview of not only livestock but companion animals too. We cover topics like nutrition, basic meat science, and behavior. With labs every week, spanning trips to animal shelters, taste testing meat samples, and hands on digestive system work with a fistulated steer. ANSC224 Growth and Reproduction is a higher level class where we delve into the development of animals from conception to adult hood. This is quite scientific and I have found this a great test and recap of my prior university learning. This unit also has weekly labs following a group of piglets through their growth and development, dissections, and Ultrasound machine usage. ANSC409 Meat Science has to be one of my favorite units as I have a strong interest in meat production. This is a great unit as it goes into thorough scientific detail on muscle and meat biology, and further on we will be doing meat production labs. ANSC209 Meat Animal Evaluation is an introductory course for my Meat Animal Evaluation Team, where we learn to evaluated live animals on Monday afternoons, and then evaluate their carcasses on Wednesday afternoons. This is a great class which can be applied to real life. And finally I have ANSC211 which is my Livestock Judging class. This means that students on the livestock judging team can get credit points for it. The University of Illinois has so many wonderful classes to offer its students, so you can direct your learning into any field you wish.

My Livestock Judging team consists of 7 people including myself. Most people on the team have judging experience in high school and community college. It is a very different environment over here and I will write a separate post on the competitions.

Frosty creek at uni

Lots of bikes and squirrels!

U of I has around 40,000 students and several campuses. It is very well known for engineering, and also has a medical school and veterinary school. The main campus at Champaign-Urbana is a town campus with cafes, restaurants, bars, gyms, ice rinks, sport stadiums, cinemas, doctors, grocery shops, and clothes shops, all on campus. With research farms for beef, dairy, sheep, pigs, poultry, and crops, as well as a working slaughter house with sales room. They have a bus system which runs all day and into the night. it is a very social campus with countless groups and clubs to join for just about anything you can think of! It is a very historic university that was founded in 1867, and has some wonderful architecture that makes it a joy to walk around. Being this old, it was also built with tunnels running underneath, this means you can get to almost anywhere on campus through these tunnels- very handy on freezing cold days! 

Tunnels under uni leading to different buildings

Main quad on campus - standing at the music
auditorium facing the Union building.

U of I is very patriotic and everyone here is very proud to be a part of their university, everywhere is orange and blue (the university's colors) and everyone wears the logo and colors all the time! It is considered a very prestigious uni to go to and every takes pride in it. U of I is part of the Big 10 which means that the sporting teams are really good and compete against the best in the country. 

Ice hockey game on campus
Illinois vs East Michigan Uni

One of the many sorority/fraternity
houses around campus.

U of I is a wonderful University and is a true representation of a big American tertiary institution. It truely is an eye opener to what 'college' is like in America and what large fees and loyal alumni and do!                            -Until next time, L. Grubb