Where to Study at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

With a campus the size of the one at the University of Illinois, you'd think that there would be no shortage of good places to study. It's true, but there are a lot that are generally overlooked and others which are popular for really no reason. This guide probably isn't going to be of much use to someone hitting senior year, but hopefully incoming freshmen will get something useful out of it.

When you come in during orientation, you'll probably be told that the Illini Union is a great place to study. That's not completely true. The most popular area of the union is the courtyard café and the set of chairs surrounding it, for some reason. Sure, there's an easily accessible coffee shop and comfy booths to sit in, but there are wall-mounted televisions about every ten feet blaring advertisements and music videos pretty constantly. Even though this is a pretty disruptive environment, it's still packed most of the time. With the combination of the loudness and the crowds, I'd suggest skipping this place. However, there are other places in the Union that are a little more overlooked. One is right next to the courtyard café, the president's room. It's got a very quiet atmosphere with nice leather chairs and several tables for group study. Still, there's no specific rule about noise in this room, so often a few inconsiderate people can ruin it for everyone. The next "obvious" sort of place is the undergraduate library. It's got two levels dedicated to studying students, with the top level held for people who want to study in groups and don't mind a little noise and the bottom floor for silent study. There aren't many downsides here: the library is very spacious and there are a large number of reference resources if you need them. The only downside is that the place is a little like a dungeon. It's fairly depressing if you have a whole lot to study. If you're an incoming freshman, or are staying the dorms past freshman year, all of the dorms have pretty quality study areas. They usually have darkened rooms with individually lit desks for quiet study. The main downside here is that they're absolutely and totally packed around finals time. In my experience, the last large "obvious" campus spot is one that most people don't really discover until a year or so into school. Grainger library is located on the engineering quad and is easily the nicest library on campus. It's four floors of computer workstations, group study rooms, secluded carrels, and comfortable chairs. The décor of the library beats out the undergrad and the union handily. It's also the only library or study area that still has a little bit of room once finals time rolls around.

The libraries on campus are pretty obvious places to go, but there are plenty of other spots which are great for cramming on and around campus. Three obvious choices are the coffee houses on Green Street: Moonstruck, Starbucks, and Bar Giuliani. Starbucks is probably the best of these as it has the most seating room, if you don't mind bland jazz and reasonably expensive coffee. The best coffeehouse on campus for studying (and, in my opinion, the best overall) is café Paradiso on Lincoln Avenue. It has a very large amount of seating space and really great coffee. Another off-campus diner sort of place is Merry Ann's diner. It's open 24 hours a day and during the afternoon, they're completely empty. The food's pretty excellent, too (they've got the best pancakes I've ever had). As for the restaurants on Green Street, there aren't really any that are easy to study in.

If you want to study on campus, you shouldn't have a hard time finding a place. The campus is pretty packed with places to shove your nose into a book without having to deal with crowds or sounds, you've just got to poke around and find out which is best for you.