Welcome freshmen and new students to Northeastern Illinois University. Northeastern has a lot to offer that would not be found at other schools. Students’ experiences at Northeastern will differ from those at many other universities.
Northeastern has a different makeup than the traditional four-year school. Northeastern has the largest returning adult population in Chicago and the most ethnically diverse population in the Midwest, so the classmates you find sitting next to you may have had an upbringing in an era or culture that has been far from your experience.
Northeastern’s south side satellite, the Caruthers’s Center for Inner City Studies has an Afrocentric curriculum and activist culture. One of the main campuses largest events of the year is the Indian Dwaili Festival of Lights.
Politics is never far away from the culture at Northeastern either, whether it is Dr. Conrad Worrill working with the Black United Front or the Union for Puerto Rican Students and the Chimexia Club demonstrating about immigration reform or the Students Against the War protesting CIA recruitment.
Do not be intimidated by all of this, Northeastern is actually a small, intimate campus, and a new student can quickly get to know a lot of people. Though Northeastern does not have dorms, there are plenty of clubs and organizations to socialize in. Join one (see pg 22 for a listing), be it a sorority or fraternity, the free wheeling freeform WZRD Radio, the Green Cycle Group, the Muslim Student Association or some intramurals in the P.E. Building.
You can even come work for the Independent (shameless self promotion) and write this story for next years Freshman Survival Guide. Come take pictures, learn layout and graphics or just review an occasional restaurant or movie.
How ever you get involved know that much of what college life is about is beyond the class room and this Freshman Survival Guide shows you just a part of what can be explored as you begin the college experience here at NEIU.