The U of IL is not as hard to graduate from as it used to be because it is now a super-selective elite university. They simply will not accept you if your English skills (or math skills) are marginal. Therefore, most students entering UIUC are able to do college-level work. That was not the case thirty or forty years ago, and that is why two-thirds of the freshmen did not return after their first year. [YES, they used to flunk out 2/3 of the freshmen, because most of them had weak skills and/or did not study enough.]
I do not know how challenging UAB is. It looks like your writing skills are good, but I don't know how well your math, science, and reasoning skills are. Ask yourself very honestly if you can take on Engineering: it requires FAR more intelligence and effort than a typical Liberal Arts curriculum. On the other hand, there are jobs for ME's: there are NO jobs for philosophers or poets.
First engineering is serious business. Who wants a poorly trained engineer to design a bridge and it collapses killing hundreds of people? Also who wants a poorly designed device where thousands may lose their jobs because it cannot compete in the market place? Since all the students that are accepted into the university have at least the minimum intelligence, the difference is how hard they are wiling to work to learn and how dedicated and committed the students are in pursuing whatever major. In some universities, especially internationally known programs, the wash out rate is even higher. In some practitioner oriented schools, they may have more leeway. In addition the large schools forces the students to be more self reliant, they are not there to spoon feed you. This is a major test of your resolve. There is a famous quote given to incoming freshmen at Georgia Tech by the dean of engineering, 'Look to the left of you and look to the right of you, only one of you will be graduating". Wouldn't you want to show the world that you graduated from one of the most rigorous engineering programs and worthy to be trusted in the most difficult but highly interesting challenges facing society?
If what that teacher said is true, then engineering is just the opposite.
2/3 of the students who start in Engineering will drop out and either transfer into something else or just quit school completely.
The schools do their best to keep them in.
During our first freshman assembly they had all the freshmen engineering students stand and shake the hand of the persons on each side of them and introduce themselves. Then they said that we should get busy and study because only one of you three will be graduating.
Your teachers story might have applied 20 years ago, but not today. In most large universities, they pass everyone who shows up and pays tuition. If you have a free ride, you need to go with that.
Enough people drop or fail out of engineering on their own, they don't need to be helped.
I think your teacher is full of BS.
I'm deciding between Mech. E at Rose-Hulman or Alabama at the moment. However, depending on the amount of aid RH gives me, I may end up at Alabama since I'm guaranteed a full ride for four years. However, I do have a small worry about going to a large school, especially one that has 30,000 people. My English teacher junior year got his master's degree from Illinois. While doing this, he had to work as a TA for the undergrad English majors. He told us that the school REQUIRED him to fail 60% of all the papers that he read in order to reduce the number of people in the major. Now I understand English and engineering are completely different majors, but now I'm extremely paranoid that if I attend UAB something similar may happen to me and I could get failing grades even though I did well on an exam. Could anyone with big university experience tell me if this is a legitimate worry or not? Thanks.
