Ryan Sliwa: My time at ECC will always help define my life

As soon as applications for the U-46 Dual Credit Program dropped in 2023, I jumped onto my laptop and applied. I couldn’t wait to get out of high school. For a while, Elgin Community College existed in my mind just as an escape from the horrors of being a confused teenager trapped in a corral with thousands of other confused teenagers, all of whom would rather be anywhere else. It was a place to get through my last few years of the public school system, and that was all. 

Over time, I became gradually more certain that applying for Dual Credit would be the best decision of my life. I started to realize this during my Environmental Biology course, when Professor Frederick Vogt announced that we would not be spending our Fridays in a stuffy laboratory, but actually out in the field seeing the natural spaces we discussed in lecture. I had never thought of Illinois as a beautiful state, certainly not the Chicagoland area, until we trekked out to vast prairies, forests, and wetlands only minutes away from Elgin.  

I distinctly remember standing silently in a field of goldenrod one gray October morning, just watching the tough grasses sway around me, feeling the soil beneath my feet, watching the Cooper’s hawk over my head dive in tighter and tighter circles, descending inevitably upon some unseen and unsuspecting prey animal that was perhaps struck by the same natural wonders as me. 

My other classes were just as enlightening, and this was in no small part thanks to the genuine passion and dedication of every single professor I met. While I’d probably reach novel length if I listed every individual and experience that helped me along the way, I will give particular thanks to Professor Leslie McTighe, who fundamentally changed the way I think about not only ancient artifacts, but everything from historical events to pieces of literature; to Professor Abigail Bailey, for allowing me to spend hours upon hours in her office to work on calculus or just to talk about life, and for making math fun for the first time since third grade; to Professor Vincent Gaddis, for reminding me that history isn’t just the bland study of events that happened in another world, but a way to re-evaluate past choices and to write a better future; and to Professor Joshua Thusat, for inspiring me to rethink the way I read novels and to see the value in my own creative writing. 

The most influential parts of my time at ECC, however, haven’t been in the classroom or even in Elgin at all—they’ve been in Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, where America’s public research initiative began in 1876, and on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, where hundreds of thousands of Americans marched for their rights in 1963. 

I joined the Center for Undergraduate Research, Innovation, and Creativity on a whim after hearing about the program from Professor Vincent Gaddis. I was accepted the next semester and began working with Professors Kellen Bolt and Johanna Cummings-Bernard on researching novels from World War II with LGBTQ+ themes. I discovered a shockingly large archive of 20th century books, from dime-store pulp fiction to high-brow masterworks from aspiring literati, which told the stories of homosexual American soldiers throughout the World Wars.  

I was initially skeptical of these stories as yet another playing out of the tired gay villain trope, but as I read and re-read the books and researched the history behind their authorship, I realized that a deeper, reparative reading revealed something far different, and much more historically true. According to this reading, these novels really criticize the military institution that, through sexually repressive and oppressive moral codes, lead to the normalization of violence as a form of relief. The real antagonist is the military setting itself, not any individual acting within it. With the encouragement of the program supervisors, I submitted my abstract to the Richard Macksey National Undergraduate Humanities Research Symposium at Johns Hopkins University and was invited to present my findings. In March of 2026, I flew to Maryland on a sponsored trip to do just this. As a seventeen-year-old, not even with a high school diploma, I spoke alongside upperclassmen from universities like Berkeley, Harvard, and Georgetown. This opportunity was immense, and it solidified my desire to work in higher education to continue adding to our understanding of my community’s art and history. 

Later, in my final semester at ECC, I was recruited into the first Education in Action cohort, where I joined fellow young people of color to learn about the legacy of racism in the American education system. Thanks to this program, I was able to spend my spring break in key landmarks in the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama, Tennessee, and Mississippi. We not only visited museums that brought us through the horrific lived experiences of enslaved Black Americans and of their descendants through systematic oppression under a hateful society, but we also got to walk along the same paths to freedom as such giants as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks.  

The experience was sobering and deeply saddening at points, but I came up with an understanding and appreciation of the unending perseverance of marginalized communities. I will continue to use my voice and the written words to speak out for my people. The key takeaway of my time at ECC has been that my education does not just have to remain an abstract concept; it can be put into motion for the betterment of my world. 

While I wait to matriculate to Grinnell College and reflect on my high school years, I don’t feel an ounce of regret, only gratitude. The main concern many kids considering the Dual Credit Program have is that they’ll miss out on their high school experience by going to ECC. However, I found that participating in Dual Credit expanded and bettered any experience I could have had in high school. If I had not applied to the program, I would never have learned to recognize the beauty in plants I used to mow over like weeds, or to enjoy working through a difficult chemical equation even when I thought it would move me to tears.  

I would never have stood before upperclassmen from top universities and colleges across the country to bring to light forgotten queer narratives. I would never have shaken hands with men who marched and fought and bled for racial liberation. Others have said that ECC puts the “community” into “community college,” and this is so true—but don’t think ECC forgets the “college” part of its name, either. Every member of this unparalleled community wants the person next to them to succeed not only in their education and career, but as a human being. 

Thanks to the incredible experiences and support I have received from ECC, I was admitted into one of the highest-ranked and most selective liberal arts colleges in the country. As I move forward with my academic career, I know I will not forget everything that I have done here. My time at ECC will always help define my life just as it does all its alumni, and I am so grateful I chose to attend. Coming to ECC transformed me as a person and prepared me to turn the page to the next chapter of my life. 

Ryan Sliwa ‘26 

Associate in Arts 

Bartlett, IL