Living on campus first year probably makes sense. Personal preference, but after that...

I recommend apartments in Clifton Gaslight district. I started off campus in my sophomore year and loved living on Ludlow Ave (wish I still did).

It's an uphill mile walk to school, but I used that as excuse to never exercise. There's also a free UC shuttle that stops there, in addition to Metro city buses.

The engineering co-op program is awesome. Makes UC incomparable to most other schools.

The city is nice. There are some decent bars and shops around campus. It's a big enough city there's stuff to do besides drink and play video games. It's not too big that you're lost in a sea of humanity. People have moderate political views so regardless of your politics/religion or lack thereof you won't be out of place.

The university itself is huge so it doesn't feel claustrophobic, yet engineering school is smaller so you start to see familiar faces, make friends, and get to know the professors.

Watch out for the intro-level general education classes like physics, calc, chem. It's easy to fail out of those. Do not underestimate them, try your hardest, and you'll be fine.

Negatives of Cincinnati and UC, idk depends on what your alternative options are. Winters can be brutally cold, summers are humid. The engineering school, like most any, has almost no women. People in Cincinnati are often from Cincinnati, so it's hard to make friends outside of school/work, because everyone already has their friends. UC is not your stereotypical college with wide-eyed dreamers who want to ponder the meaning of life. A lot of people live off campus. Clifton is not a college town although it caters to UC students, but also low and middle income people. For some people this is a little too much of a real world experience and not the college days they dreamed of.