EXPLO rE

Next stop, unstoppable.

College is more than a name on your sweatshirt. It should be TRANSFORMATIVE.

All kinds of amazing people come to UIC, and they leave here EVEN BETTER. You’ve proven that you’re a hard worker, but combine that fierce work ethic with INCREDIBLE OPPORTUNITIES — guaranteed acceptance to a UIC graduate program, co-writing a research paper with a bigname professor, interning at an immigrant justice law firm — and you’ll be UNSTOPPABLE.

UIC is the BIGGEST AND BEST PUBLIC UNIVERSITY in Chicago, and we specialize in turning daydreams into dream jobs. We’re proud of our DIVERSE AND DARING student body, and our PRIME LOCATION in the heart of a vibrant and authentic American city.

All that’s missing is YOU.

Big City Brains

Future doctor Justin Banks had his pick of top colleges, but UIC’s one-of-a-kind ACADEMIC PROGRAMS topped them all.

Justin, an overachiever from Oak Park, IL, was accepted everywhere, but UIC’s unique GPPA program (Guaranteed Professional Programs Admission) was “a huge game-changer.”

Justin is set on becoming a cardiologist and UIC was the only university that guaranteed him a spot in medical school (the same UIC guarantee applies to business school, law school, graduate education programs and more).

In the UIC Honors College, Justin is surrounded by motivated and motivating classmates from all over, and the research opportunities are wild. “There are so many professors I can reach out to, whether I want to do something biology related, public health related, or to specialize in cardiology. And I’m only a junior!”

Justin loves living in Chicago—not just for the food and fun, but also the hands-on learning opportunities that come when the city is your classroom.

“I volunteer at the UIC Hospital, and the joy that I can bring to people’s faces, even through small interactions, reminds me that I’m in the right place and on the right path.” discover. uic.edu

Born To Bioengineer

Lesly Villareal is the lab queen of UIC.

Biomedical engineering is exactly what it sounds like — designing new technologies that save lives. And that’s what Lesly Villareal did… as an undergraduate. In her Senior Design course, Lesly worked with real doctors to identify a real problem and create a real solution: a model for early breast cancer detection.

“Honestly, it was really exciting,” says Lesly, who amassed tons of hands-on research experiences at UIC. “It was a full circle moment. Everything we’ve learned in and out of the classroom we applied to a physical item, an actual application.”

Lesly’s first research gig at UIC was a paid campus internship ($14/hr… not too shabby). Then her College of Engineering advisor recruited Lesly to join his MTM Lab (“micro-fabricated tissue models,” of course), where she’s been engineering liver cells that might one day be implanted into patients.

Now Lesly’s pursuing her master’s degree in that same lab and setting her sights on her first big bioengineering job. When that day comes, we know one thing — the lab queen will crush it.

SEE YOURSELF, BE YOURSELF

At UIC, DIVERSITY is our super power.

Christian Zavala visited a lot of impressive college campuses as a high school senior, but something was always missing. “There weren’t people who looked like me.”

“I’m Hispanic, first-generation and LGBTQ,” says Christian. “That’s just who I am.”

At UIC, Christian has met people from totally different backgrounds, but also found his UIC family. That’s literally what fellow members of the Association of Latino Professionals For America (ALPFA) call each other — “ALPFA-milia.”

“Everything we do is to prepare each other for the future,” says Christian. “I’ve learned so much from my ALPFA mentors, and that knowledge keeps getting passed on and on.”

People are taking notice. Christian, a marketing and finance major, was chosen from more than 1,000 applicants for a coveted 10-week summer internship. Through all of his experiences at UIC, Christian has embraced his identity while opening himself up to a future full of possibility.

“The opportunities really are endless.”

Fab Faculty

There are no ivory towers at UIC, just world-class faculty conducting groundbreaking research while mentoring the next generation of deep thinkers and tenacious doers. For Chicago’s largest university, our class sizes are surprisingly small, so you’ll be on a first-name basis with Fulbright scholars and international experts.

GHOLNECSAR “GHOLDY” MUHAMMAD

UIC Alumna | Education Icon | Joy Creator

Long before she was an award-winning educator with fans like Pharrell Williams, Gholdy Muhammad knew she loved teaching. She also knew the American education model was failing young people like her. So she got her Ed.D. from UIC and developed a new approach to curriculum that shifts the focus from test prep to cultivating self-love and joy.

Miiri Kotche

Rockstar Bioengineer | Innovative Educator | Experience Maker Lectures aren’t really Miiri Kotche’s thing. She prefers to dive right in. Her undergraduate bioengineering students partner with medical students and industry sponsors to identify realworld health issues and design medical devices to fix them. Winner of UIC’s top teaching award, Kotche’s passion is creating mind-blowing learning experiences that launch rewarding careers.

BRIAN S. BAUER

Real-Life Indiana Jones | UIC Anthropologist | Machu Picchu Man

If you can’t find Brian Bauer in his UIC office, he’s probably in Peru excavating an ancient Incan temple in the Andes or translating the 16th-century journals of Spanish conquistadors. That’s how Bauer and a Peruvian colleague recently discovered that Machu Picchu, one of the most famous archeological sites in the world, should actually be called Huayna Picchu.

Meenesh Singh

Carbon Hunter | Green Engineer | Artificial Leaf Grower

Look out, climate change — Meenesh Singh is coming for you. In the past two years, Singh’s chemical engineering lab has created artificial leaves that capture CO2 and invented a new type of cement that stores carbon. This is green engineering for the common good.

All of that hard work is about to pay off. Big time.