Thumbs down to… Facebook failing on NU servers

For several hours on Thursday, users on the Northwestern network had little to no access to Facebook. Cue campus-wide panic. How students survived those few hours without constantly checking their news feeds and stalking all their friends is unknown. Luckily, Facebook access was restored by mid-afternoon, and students breathed a sigh of relief as they returned to procrastinating from midterms. NUIT has not released any information about the cause of the failure.

Thumbs up to… Fitz recruiting 17 new Wildcats

Northwestern snagged 17 new high school recruits on National Signing Day on Wednesday, forming what Coach Pat Fitzgerald calls “the deepest class we’ve brought in to Northwestern in quite some time.” The new class will have 11 offensive players and six defensive players. Among the recruits is Houston native Christian Jones, the only NU recruit ranked in the top 150 high school football players in the country. Another is Zack Oliver, a Louisiana naive who may be the Wildcats’ future quarterback. There are are many reasons for optimism in among Wildcat fans.

Thumbs up to… Men’s Basketball almost defeating Ohio State

So close, yet so far. Men’s basketball put up a good fight last Saturday against No. 1-ranked Ohio State, almost pulling off the biggest upset in program history. The Wildcats ultimately fell 58-57 and failed to give Ohio State its first loss of the season. Still, the team deserves some praise for giving NU fans an exciting game and for scaring the No. 1 college basketball team in the country. Here’s to hoping this momentum continues tomorrow for our highly-anticipated game against the University of Illinois, the first Welsh-Ryan game to ever be televised on CBS.

Thumbs up to… First NU snow day since 1979

When students received the University text Tuesday night about the snow day on Wednesday, it was a celebration of primal scream proportions. For many NU students, this was their first snow day ever. Students haven’t looked so happy and radiant since Dillo Day 2010. The snowball fight between hundreds of students in the quads north of the library also deserves a big thumbs up, almost all of which was coordinated through the 1,328-member Facebook group “ALL-CAMPUS SNOWBALL FIGHT.” Ah, the power of social networking and a little bit of collective student action.

Thumbs down to… Blizzard leaves campus in ruins

Snow days and cancelled midterms are fun, but they called it “Snowpocalypse” for a reason. This was the third worst storm in Chicago history, and 20.2 inches of snow is no easy task for any city to handle, let alone Chicago and Evanston. A few of the crazy adventurous souls who actually went out Tuesday night found themselves caught in snow drifts and 70-mile-per-hour wind gusts. Even with the efficiency of the University and the city’s plowing system, walking across campus still requires major caution. Things can only get better in the next few days with the expected record-low wind chill!

Thumbs up to… New Medill-McCormick collaboration

Journalism meets engineering – a match made in heaven. Medill and McCormick announced Thursday afternoon it will invest $4.2 million in a new collaboration that will allow computer science and journalism students to work side-by-side on to-be-determined projecs. This innovative partnership is truly one-of-a-kind, and, if it works, could change the way news is reported and distributed in the Chicago area and possibly beyond. Medill and McCormick are once again proving they are leaders of their fields.