Northern Illinois University

Date: Feb 02 2015
Major: Physical Therapy/Exercise Science (This Major's Salary over time)
I transferred to NIU a couple of years ago. Some of the staff has been excellent and very friendly and helpful in my program. But, there are others that have been rude, mean, and frankly don't give a damn about students. Big biggest issues with the school have been on the administrative side of things.

Been here for several years and there are some really great teachers and then there are some very bad ones. But my biggest complaints have to do with how the campus is run. They tend to hire young and inexperienced CA's who do not enforce the rules in the dorms. There is blatant agism in their hiring practices when it comes to the CA position. You could likely count the number of CA's over 25 on one hand. Likely 0 over the age of 30 despite having a healthy population of non-traditional students.

If you live in the dorms expect thin walls and people who like to laugh, scream, and shout at all hours so good luck getting homework done unless you do get lucky enough to get the rare CA that does their job.

Also, after you move the campus will kindly forward you your mail. Of course that is after it has been opened (which tampering with the mail is a federal offense) and sometimes 6-8 months after the fact.

The honors program likes to change the rules on how they run things without much or any notice. If you are lucky I might be buried in a 20pg newsletter that you will be too busy to read anyway.

Oh, if you are looking to get help and information from financial aid? Forget it, it's like pulling teeth and you are better off just asking classmates what options are out there. Which is why I found out I ran out of hours for my map grant for my last semester near the middle/end right before my last semester to graduate. Sorry did you think you would have enough aid to graduate since you took out every single possible loan we offer? NOPE suck it student, find some other way to pay.

Also, had to contact the school ombudsman office to let them know that having student run events on campus with a DJ that blares music at the dorms so you can hear it in your room for 9 hours straight that talks about drugging girls and raping them and f(*K the police is probably not a good idea on a college campus. Or allowing the football team to blare the same type of music over the loudspeakers in the stadium during practices that can be heard by parents with children and visiting family members might not be such a good idea.

Just this last semester I got to treat another students minor stab wound after he and a buddies roughhousing got out of hand. Interesting but since I lived on the same floor as the person who did the stabbing and didn't much care for the guy it didn't make me feel to safe. (I should mention he did indeed get expelled for that) Of course that didn't stop other boys on the floor from engaging in harassing behaviors and defacement of property.

That being said they have a nice on campus clinic, some of their programs are very good. But if you can live off campus and not in the dorms. The rec center is pretty nice too and they have done a number of building upgrades to certain parts of the campus.