I'm probably a little late to the thread, but I went to NIU. I didn't directly knew anyone who was shot or killed, though one of the girls who died was in my psych class (~80 people) and I knew a lot of people who knew people who were killed or injured. I also knew someone who helped with first aid from some people who bolted from the scene.

I've never returned to the building it was in (had lectures in it when I was a freshman), so I can't speak to that. I have been to the memorials. The building sat empty for several years, I believe.

But the rest of that year. We first got about a week and a half off, and for awhile, no one really knew what to do. The semester was kind of a bust for a lot of people. The school had a lot of counselors available. The community banded together to make free cookies available. There were lots of therapy dogs, which were my favorite and I spent so much time with that the handlers remembered me from the previous year when they came back for the anniversary.

But I'd say we really rebounded as a community. The campus worked hard to become a lot safer, though they were already doing a pretty good job. Campus police was on the scene in about a minute. But the whole campus felt a lot more close-knit after that and for the rest of my time there. NIU is a very commuter-heavy school, and while I lived in the dorms all four years, that wasn't very common. It always felt a little fractured, but it felt a lot less that way afterwards.

There's just some things you can't go through as a community without it bringing you closer together. I'm sure the affect has lessened a lot, by now, as it's been seven years. There may be a few grad students who were there, but for the most part, it's just a sad chapter in the school's history now. The only thing that's left is improved security policies, I imagine.

I personally was just kind of shocked for a long time and then went through a depressive period for a couple months that I didn't really recognize until much later. I was meant to go to a party that night, which I ended up going to...but it was a lot different and a lot of watching TV news and just being in shock that you were watching your school on TV and getting irrationally angry when they got minor details about campus wrong.

I also remember that there were a bunch of us online that plotted how to keep the Westboro Church away from the funerals, though the families all asked us to not intervene so we didn't end up doing so.