Social media has made connecting with family, friends, colleagues, and strangers a lot easier. People can build strong online communities that offer valuable resources and/or forums to express their concerns and thoughts. Fortunately NJIT has its own community across multiple forms of media. The focus of this article will be the “subreddit” (sub-section of the main page on Reddit) made for NJIT Highlanders, /r/NJTech (reddit.com/r/NJTech). As to why the subreddit is not called /r/NJIT is in part due to moderators being unable to reclaim it.
Handled by four moderators, all of them NJIT alumni(ae), /r/NJTech offers students and staff a soapbox on which to stand to give their voices more reach. With a following of over 900 members, questions can be answered within moments by other students who may have experienced similar situations and who know what steps to take. On some occasions when the Highlander Pipeline, Moodle, or NJIT Webmail are experiencing downtime for server maintenance, the subreddit is the place to go in order to verify the situation (although NJIT usually adds a header explaining the times for server maintenance and when operations return to being normal).
Alumni (ae) sometimes post AMAs (Ask Me Anything) and offer their perspectives on how NJIT has prepared them after graduating. Clubs can announce meetings, accomplishments or general news that could spark interest among students, even prompting them to join. Last semester was unique in that Student Senate candidates used the subreddit to promote their platforms as a way to increase transparency between themselves and student voters.
Students can use the subreddit as a place to garner general information about their classes, professors, friends, and campus life. If you have trouble with the homework from your CS class, ask the subreddit; chances are someone knows the answers. If you’re unsure if a professor is good or bad, ask the subreddit. If you find yourself bored and want to hang out, there are usually get-togethers, videogame tournaments, and other activities organized there. If you want to try a new eatery, but aren’t sure if you should spend the money, there are plenty of food reviews of local places.
Despite being a place to exchange information and discuss on-campus events, /r/NJTech is also a place for people to be themselves (thanks to anonymity) and make jokes. Of course some jokes can go too far so user discretion is advised. Despite this, it is a wide-reaching, informative, and varied community, and is definitely worth a look.
