It is tradition for some editorial board members of TechNews to write a summative goodbye article before they graduate. Generally, they reflect on their time at Illinois Tech, and what it meant to them. Well, the time for me to write that article myself has come, with my graduation rapidly approaching. Knowing of this tradition, I have known for the last three years that the title you see above this text is the title I’d choose for my own contribution to this tradition. Previous articles of this flavor have been generally wistful and overwhelmingly positive, and while I do have a lot of good things to say, I feel as though I’d be doing myself and the student body an injustice if I didn’t share the other aspects of Illinois Tech. Optimistically, I hope these would serve as pieces for the next generation of students to pick up and improve the school, but realistically, this is just me getting some stuff off my chest. So, with that being said, allow me to reminisce on my time at Illinois Tech, from August 2021 to May 2025. [Editor’s Note: Everything in this article is opinion.]
The good
Contrary to the opinions held by seemingly many, I believe there is a lot of good at the university. I think the overwhelming majority of members of the Illinois Tech community are upstanding members who do so much that the average student doesn’t see. I’d like to shout out just a few of them here.
The group that I as a student interact with the most is of course professors. Though I have had the occasional professor who seems only invested in their research, the majority have displayed varying levels of interest in their teaching. Dr. Todd Springer, Dr. Emily Leiner, Dr. Rhakshya Khatiwada, Dr. Yurii Shylnov, Dr. Andrew Howard, Dr. Bryce Littlejohn, Dr. Pavel Snopok, Dr. Yagmur Torun, Dr. Joseph Renow, Margaret Power, and of course, my first advisor, Dr. Sally Laurent-Muehleisen. All of these professors have, in some way, permanently altered the way I see the world, and have set me up for success in my future academic endeavors. This is, of course, heavily biased towards the physics department, as thats where I have spent most of my time, but I am certain that the effort I have seen from them extends to other pockets of the university at-large.
During the three and a half semesters in which I had the pleasure of serving in the Student Government Association, I had the privilege to meet and work with many amazing administrators. Most of these individuals are almost completely invisible to the student body, save for maybe a name at the bottom of an email. Bruce Watts, Kevin Gallagher, Cindy Chaffee (also known as the nice lady who brings the dogs a few times a semester), Andrew Yocum, Ron Starbuck, Janessa Loren Luvert, Graham Davis, Patrick Fina, Rachel Hirsh, Mark Angeles, Steven Goodwin, Ramar Evans, and Amber Reading. Each of them individually have done so much behind the scenes that makes the campus run day-to-day. Of course, the student staff, janitorial services, Chartwell’s workers, and facilities team that all work with these administrators also cannot go without recognition.
I’d be remiss not to mention TechNews. I’ve been writing for this small newspaper for a while now, longer than I’ve cared to count. It has given me a creative outlet in a school that can become overly focused on technical skills and disciplinary knowledge. I count myself lucky to have been able to write as much as I have on the variety of topics that I have. Its that freedom of working for a student newspaper that has helped me process myself, this school, and the world at large. I’ve enjoyed working both for and alongside Kris Shiflet, the Editor-in-Chief I have served alongside, and Angela Petrone, the former Co-Editor-in-Chief. This year’s editorial board is awesome, and its been great to coordinate and provide my knowledge to them. Its also been great to write and edit along so many great student journalists– the quality of the work they have put out these last few years has just been phenomenal. Having helped facilitate the most recent editorial board elections, I am confident that this organization is in good hands, and I hope to see it continue its mission for many more years to come.
A special cozy place resides in my heart for the Paul V. Galvin Library. When I was on my final semester before I’d have to leave due to lack of tuition, I had finally found a job at the library working the circulation desk. I have spent five semesters working for the library, the money I earned from which help pay the majority of my tuition. I spent many long nights grinding away at my homework and many dayshifts talking to friends (both behind and in front of the circulation desk) alongside helping patrons. Sean Murphy, Barrett Kent, Miranda Blackburn, Karen Cherone, Rebekah Oden, Michael Gillespie, and Wojciech Grabowski have all been amazing supervisors, and without them giving me a chance, I would have had to drop Illinois Tech after my sophomore year. I’ve also worked alongside many great student workers who provided great company, ensuring each shift had good laughs and never became too boring.
This actually leads me into the final group I’d like to recognize — the students themselves. Despite knowing most of you as faces in a crowd, a crowd whose constituents are almost completely different from my first day here and yet a featureless crowd nonetheless, I have a great amount of love and reverence for you all. Especially in these increasingly uncertain times, it warms my heart to know I got to be part of a community which values education. I’ve seen and heard countless students laugh, toil, cry, stress, sigh, and relax over these last four years, and each one of those instances had been evidence of our common struggle and passions. I am wishing for success for each one of you, and am hoping for many more millennia of academic traditions.
The bad
I’d like to lead with the group which brought me my first sense of community on campus, before ripping it from my heart and then bringing itself to the brink of extinction: the Student Government Association (SGA). I started in SGA back in 2021 as a senator, then became the Vice President of Campus Life in 2022 before being removed in 2023. Since my removal, I have watched an incompetent executive board burn and destroy the work that I witnessed dozens of members put in as SGA attempted to recover from COVID-19. I care a lot about SGA, and the thousands of words of criticism I have put to page these last two years have only been out of love for the organization. A good student government could do a lot for the students here, and Illinois Tech’s SGA is far from irredeemable, which will generally be the reasoning for the placement of other groups in this section. The topics in this section could easily join “the good” with conscious improvement and effort.
I have a love-hate relationship with this campus. The Mies style, which this campus reveres itself for, is certainly interesting on the eyes, but falls very short in terms of user experience. CDA’s roast in the summer and freeze in the winter, thanks to the poorly insulated glass walls on almost every first-floor residence building. Crown Hall has had tiles fall from its roof, while windows leak across campus. Most academic buildings are antiquated to say the least, with questionable HVAC performance when the seasons change and broken blinds being a staple across the campus. There are some limitations as to what the school can do due to efforts to preserve Mies’s vision, so I’ve been told, so I can’t judge Illinois Tech too hard for this, I suppose. And don’t get me started on the dorms. I lived in McCormick Student Village (MSV) my first year— the cement bricks, tight layout, small windows, and poor lighting made the place feel like a prison. Rowe Village, my residence for the last three years, hardly fairs better, with concrete walls and poor sunlight access on the first floor feeling like a slightly more spacious dungeon. I just hope that with such a massive architecture school, maybe one day the school could invest in buildings that are both visually appealing and functional.
What I am about to say won’t be controversial for the vast majority of students here on campus, but may not be the easiest pill to swallow for the administration: education is not a focus at Illinois Tech. I am lucky that most of my teachers have had moderate-to-intense focuses on the education aspect of their jobs, but from my discussions with students of all walks of life, that is hardly the norm. It would seem many professors spend more time on their research than their students, which may be reflective of their personal interests, but often leaves many students with a poor taste in their mouth. The physics department, when hiring a new astrophysics faculty, sought student input into the selection process. I believe this should be the standard, but I have not heard of this anywhere else. One of my more controversial suggestions to improve the campus has been to make the class feedback forms a more public affair, publishing anonymized results for all members of Illinois Tech to see. I believe if a professor’s educational work was published as their research work was, students would have a more holistic understanding of the classes they are signing up for, while signaling to professors that this is something Illinois Tech takes seriously.
Speaking of registration, it’s a mess. Academically, students are not given enough information to make informed decisions and properly prepare for their courses. There are many hidden financial costs (eg, textbooks, homework programs, lab supplies, etc.) that students are expected to shoulder but may not be informed of until they receive their syllabi in late July or, even worse, on the first days of classes. I think there is no reason this can’t be added as a table or as a short description in the academic registration portal. Housing registration could also go much better. A $600 deposit is ridiculous, and for those unaware, it is a recent addition. When I was onboarded, I believe the deposit was either $200 or $300. It should be $0. Students every year also seem confused as to how priority is given in terms of registration, reflecting bad communication.
Speaking of: communication! This barely escaped the ugly section by millimeters. This school fails at communicating with its students full stop. Deadlines, finals, events, missions, the successes of its students, and just about anything else you can think of suffers from poor communication, impacting the reach on students and the actionability by the members of this community. I’ll give credit where credit is due: the facilities and OTS departments know how to communicate. They are on top of outages and maintenance, and students generally seem to be more aware of their work more than most other going-ons on this campus.
In a slight pivot, I’d like to share a frustration that I believe many students can relate to: the state of Physics 1 and 2 (and to a lesser extent, 3), Calculus 2, and Chemistry 2. These classes are the epitome of what I call mile-wide inch-deep courses, in which far too many topics are covered in rapid succession, allowing no time for students to master the content before a new one is introduced. I understand these classes serve multiple purposes, both to equip non-major students with the necessary knowledge they will need as well as to prepare in-major students for the classes ahead of them, but from my experience with other colleges, I think the structure of these classes is due to a lack of imagination and adoption of the norm rather than out of necessity. Non-majors often feel these classes are worthless while in-majors are bombarded with so much information that its impossible to memorize it all, necessitating later reteaching. A little bit of focused creativity and discussion could turn these classes from nightmares of first- and second-year students into enjoyable experiences that feel relevant for non-majors while appropriately preparing in-majors.
The ugly
As part of my transition to Vice President of Student Life of SGA in early 2022, many individuals warned me about the Dean of Students office. I was constantly alerted to the office’s ineffectiveness at their job, rarely if ever taking in student opinion and making any real action on it. I wanted to not believe these claims, and to make an earnest effort to collaborate with the Dean of Students office. Unfortunately, despite my efforts, collaboration requires effort from both sides, and I never felt I got that from the Dean of Students office. It is also in my opinion that the Dean of Students office stands on the wrong side of history, as they have consistently been a force against good decisions, such as in the case of hanging the flag of Palestine in Hermann Hall. I am also personally critical of the way in which the Dean of Students office has handled incidents of a tangential nature, in which I believe they have been harsh in their targeting of students who are just trying to do the right thing. For inclusion in this section, I believe this office needs extreme reform in their operations and leadership.
In a similar vein of lack of collaboration with students, I place the Office of the President in this section. In my four years at Illinois Tech, I believe I have seen leadership from this office a total of three times. Twice in relation to my prior role in SGA, and once on a maintenance cart while moving from MTCC to the tower. I did miss the first day of my welcome week, so it’s possible leadership from the Office of the President was present there, but besides that, I believe my experience tracks with most students. It feels this office is hardly involved with the students that pay the salary. For an office which many see as the representative of the university to the outside world, I believe this is poor conduct on the office’s part. I believe the Office of the President should serve the students, rather than the students serving the business interests of the Office of the President, and for that to be made a reality, I believe there needs to be a radical realignment in the leadership of this office.
Goodbye
My time at Illinois Tech is just about over. In a few weeks, there will be few left at Illinois Tech who experienced the last four years as a student, and in a few years, those few will be none. Eventually, even the longer-term staff will move on, reserving these last four years as a memory that year by year, will be held by fewer and fewer people. One day, the only evidence that any of this happened will be surviving fragments of evidence, of which I hope maybe this article will join. Of everyone who first came to Illinois Tech in August of 2021, none will have experienced it quite like I did. Theres been many ups and downs, both from the perspective of the university but also myself. I’ve grown a lot in these last four years, and I am hardly the same person I was just a year ago, much less four years ago. Averaging all the complaining and celebrations I’ve had, I’d say it was a good experience overall. There will be a few more contributions from me on this issue in slipstick, and I may come back to write a thing or two in the following years if I feel particularly up to it, but I believe this is my goodbye. To everyone who is still reading: be kind, be wise, and everything else will fall into place.