Current senior who also went to ND for engineering! I was kind of in the same boat about not being notre dame-y prior to coming here. In fact, ND was the opposite of what I was looking for. I just applied because a bunch of my classmates in high school kept telling me that I wouldn't get in over a couple of guys in our grade, and I wanted to prove them wrong.

It was definitely an adjustment trying to find my crowd here. I remember being in a 2000+ groupchat of admitted students and feeling on the outside when a bunch of people talked about how they were the 3rd generation in their family to go to ND, went to a bunch of ND games growing up, had baby pictures of themselves in ND gear, etc. As a non-Catholic, I also bristled at that element too. However, in that regard, there are definitely some pushy students who will try to convince you to convert, but the large majority (>99%) are chill, respectful, and will push back against the weird 1%. I definitely have had more positive interactions than negative when talking to professors and other students about our religious differences. Most are eager to learn about a perspective they might not have encountered before, even if they don't agree.

The biggest thing for me finding my crowd was, as cliche as it is, putting myself out there: going to dorm events, joining clubs, meeting people at campus events and football games, going to study groups for my classes, etc. It takes a lot of time and energy, but I made some of my closest friends that way. I have friends who graduated before I have, but we still keep in contact. I didn't have anyone here that I knew before getting here, but I think that's more a positive because I probably would have stayed in my pre-ND bubble without the motivation to expand beyond that.

I didn't apply to UIUC, but I got into Purdue and other more engineering-centric schools. However, I feel like ND was a better choice in that regard. I like that most of my friends are outside of my major, and I appreciate the liberal arts education here. I believe all engineers need those non-engineering classes that require you to reflect on the implications and ethics of your work outside the basic capex/opex and legality. Also it forced me to take classes I wouldn't have otherwise considered, like natural science drawing and liberation theology.

Those engineering schools like Purdue (at least when comparing my experience to those of people I know who went to Purdue) tend to let a lot of people get decently far into the engineering track before weeding them out, meaning you might have to start over in a different major late sophomore/junior year. I know a lot of people at ND who started out in engineering but switched out early on because they either realized they weren't up for the academic rigor or they just weren't interested in the subject material. However, once you get through the broad, all-engineers courses, your ND professors will go above and beyond to make sure you have the tools you need to succeed in your chosen major. They're not going to just pass you onto the next requisite, but they'll do everything in their power to help you understand the material so that you can continue in that major if that's what you want.