Entering college for the first time can be an overwhelming experience for even the most organized and motivated student. From navigating a new environment, to making new friends, to learning how to balance collegiate-level coursework along with a job, most first-year students are faced with unfamiliar territory. In an effort to immediately engage new students and acquaint them with college, Northeastern Illinois University offers a First-Year Experience program.

Northeastern senior Natasha Overton has a master plan. She will graduate in 2014 with her heart in arts education and her mind on the future:

2015 – Enter a master’s degree program

2018 – Graduate with a master’s degree

2020 – Return to Northeastern to teach and start a local, comprehensive arts program

Nichole Schau knew from a young age she wanted to be an elementary school teacher.

Northeastern Illinois University’s new president may have grown up downstate, but Gloria J. Gibson is at home here. For Gibson, home is not about location as much as it is the people and the students the institution serves.

Shawn K. Woods is a high-energy example of how a good influence on one life can reverberate through the lives of countless others. A sought-after speaker, trainer and coach—as well as an author and an entrepreneur—Woods is an expert on rising above challenges and is eager to pass the lesson on.

In 2006, Rodrigo Garcia was lifting weights with a friend at the Northeastern gym. Garcia had just come off five years of service in the Marine Corps, during which he had three separate deployments in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Having spent the majority of his last five years on military bases and in combat zones, Garcia was having a tough time adjusting to life at Northeastern.

When Luis Ortiz graduated from Northeastern Illinois University, one of his first calls to the field took him back to his family’s roots in Puerto Rico.

From fashion design student to food industry global chief information officer is quite a career change. But for Julia Anderson (B.S. ’85 Information Science and General Business Administration), creative innovation and data-based decision-making are all in a day’s work.

When Becca Peterson arrived at Northeastern Illinois University in 2014, the transition to college was a shock.

In the spring of 1984, a young Speech and Performing Arts major anxiously walked into the cramped and cluttered Ensemble Español Spanish Dance Theater office to apply for a student aide position. “Hi, my name is George,” he said, introducing himself to Dame Libby Komaiko, the company’s founder and artistic director.