Recapping My 4 Semesters & a Summer

Madison Miller , 04/30/2026

Introduction

Getting started working on echoes was an interesting experience, to say the least. Being recruited by a friend who knows Erika Mesh and being accepted to the Web team immediately after applying was a whirlwind in the best way. I don’t think I’d been so excited (and maybe also scared) about something academic like that in such a long time. Little did I know that this project would turn out to be one of the most impactful experiences I would have during my time at RIT.

Green Behind the Ears

I joined the Web team in Fall of 2024. I was fresh out of my Web & Mobile Computing II course and felt very confident about my knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. I’d also learned a bit about PHP and mySQL, so I felt like I was on top of the world and ready to develop anything. That changed pretty quickly as we kicked off the semester for echoes when we decided we would use a web development framework instead of vanilla HTML and CSS. I’d never had any experience with that before, not even for coursework, so I was totally nervous. Even after going through the tutorials for Svelte and TailwindCSS, I still didn’t think I’d be able to keep up with my more experienced teammates, Lucas Corey and Rose Rushton , to actually contribute much of anything useful. I focused a lot on page design with Figma, and discussing mockups helped me get acquainted with my team and I began to talk more. As the semester went on, I got a bit more comfortable with all of this new stuff that I’d been thrown into. I learned how to create reusable components, what a playtest was (really outed myself as a non-GDD student), and how to take feedback and create action items out of it. My communication skills slowly improved, and I slowly started asking for help, even if I didn’t want to.

Then, spring semester rolled around, and we said goodbye to a teammate and gained two more, Rose Silletto and Katie Hellmann . I got to step into a supportive role, helping to onboard the others and answer questions. We started having in-person meetings, and I got a lot more comfortable with collaborating on features while being able to bounce ideas off of my teammates. I began running some of our meetings so that our lead, Lucas, could focus on his capstone project. It was scary having everyone look to me for what to do next without having Lucas there. Eventually, I settled into the routine of leading a meeting here and there, and also presenting our progress to everyone at our All-Hands meetings. I will admit, though, that this was not without a fair share of panicked messages to Lucas asking what to say so that I wouldn’t leave anything out. By the end of the semester, I was able to provide progress updates without the panic texts and comfortably run team meetings whenever necessary (Hello, character development!). At some point, Professor Mesh came to us and said, “Hey, wouldn’t a blog on the website be cool?” And I got straight to researching and designing the new pages, not even knowing if we would ever get to develop it. I was invited to return in the fall as Webmaster, which was very exciting and I was very grateful. Then, I got the news that Professor Mesh wanted me to work on the website over the summer, upgrading pages and adding new features, for CIR credit. The blog was becoming a reality.

Summer Development: Party of 1

Working in the summer of echoes was incredibly fun, but also an adjustment I had to make. I worked primarily alone, with Professor Mesh only stepping in here and there to do some things, and so I had to rely on myself to plan my schedule, figure out my tasks, and set aside the time to do them. Thankfully, echoes is a project I truly love, so it wasn’t hard at all to get myself to work. I was speeding through data pipeline expansion, integrating new parts into the website and developing new pages. I also had to do a lot of styling updates, which meant I finally had to really learn Tailwind (don’t tell Lucas!) and started using it with intention rather than copying styles from other components until I found something I liked. While I discovered that working solo means things go a lot quicker most of the time, it also meant that running into a wall could cause some setbacks because I didn’t have others to discuss problems and solutions with. I ran into an issue with the blog setup I originally wanted to do with markdown. I was completely stumped for about a week or two, researching and trying my hardest to figure it out, and ultimately had to totally switch gears and set everything up another way. I felt like I’d lost a lot of momentum right as the summer was coming to an end, and it was honestly a struggle to get back into a rhythm. Despite this, I managed to pull everything together and finish strong in time for the fall semester, proud of all of the work I’d done and ready to show it off to the returning echoes members.

Working as Webmaster

And here we come to a new school year. A new year with a new role and a new set of teammates. I was nervous about stepping into a new leadership position, and I texted Lucas to ask for advice. It turns out I knew exactly what to do, I just needed a little bit of help realizing it. While Web was a team of two with myself and Presley Smith , our Associate Producer, Ayushi Parikh , was always at our meeting and ready to help. Getting everyone onboarded was pretty quick and easy, and soon enough, we were ready to start developing.

The Fall 2025 semester was a big deal for echoes. We had a goal of getting the Paths of Change games done in time for launch on Brick City Weekend. Web had the task of making sure the WebGL builds would work on the website. Though in the lead up to Brick City, we were just making some small adjustments and additions to the website here and there, once we got to the week of the launch event, we were rushing to get the builds from the game teams so we could import them for the website. I recall sitting at a table with Ayushi on the upper floor of the gym two nights before Brick City with our laptops on the table, trying to make sure the build sizes for all four games were less than the maximum size we could deploy. We discovered some audio bugs with the game builds on the website that we had to fix ASAP. Our solution was to put the game builds on a separate page so that the audio would stop playing once you close the tab, rather than it continuing to play if you navigate away from that page.

After Brick City, we didn’t have much to do except posting blog posts for members of the echoes team and getting a new page up for our new theme, Resonant Voices. I took responsibility for all four of the blog posts, since I had the most experience with the blog. I arranged meetings with everyone who wrote one to make sure they were satisfied with the way their work appeared on the website. I think that getting to talk to people about what they wrote in these meetings was a wonderful little experience, since it was a glimpse into what they work on within their own teams. Because it was so time consuming to develop the blog posts and make sure that they appeared correctly, we ended the fall semester with a few posts left to develop and deploy, but that made for a good backlog going into spring.

The fall semester provided me with a whole list of new experiences in leadership. I remember sitting in the leads meeting for the first time, thinking about how everyone in that room must have so much more experience than me and they totally know what they’re doing. Our first meeting ended with an exercise about what kind of leader you are, and I had a lot of takeaways from that. I decided I wanted to lead with empathy and kindness. My goals were to make sure that everyone on my team was seen not just as a teammate doing work, but as a person with a whole life outside of the context of echoes. I made sure to start every meeting with a, “Hey, how are you guys feeling?” I think it helped to create a better atmosphere for everyone, getting a conversation going and not just keeping things all business. Connecting with my teammates is a practice I made sure to take into the spring.

I also got to sit in on production meetings, which were interesting and filled with a lot of discussion that, most times, I didn’t feel qualified enough to contribute to, but still tried anyways. I learned a lot about what goes on behind the scenes, like documentation for the game teams, how that should be structured, and ways that the other teams were running. As someone who knows very little about game development, I really enjoyed these sneak peeks into the process, even if I did feel a little lost in discussion.

My Final Semester

Going into this spring semester, Web gained two new members, Logan Potter and Zachary Ayers . This was officially the largest team I’d ever managed, and I was very excited to take this on. I think that we all hit it off pretty well, with many discussions early on about what they hoped to gain from echoes, what their skillsets were, and how we could build off of that. Onboarding was a breeze, and within the first two to three weeks, our entire backlog of tasks had already been finished and deployed. We added a lot of new components, like an audio player and a surprise me button. Logan took on the task of making a more formal brand guide for echoes and collaborated with the VIP Technically Speaking for advice and feedback on what we had already. Zach developed an amazing search bar and listened to all of the feedback we gave him about improving usability, which was implemented almost immediately. We were able to develop and deploy new game pages for the three games for Resonant Voices in time for GDC over spring break. All of the Paths of Change games were accepted to RPI GameFest, so we also fixed some issues we found with broken links from the legacy theme name. I got to research and push some redirect quick fixes while our teams were showing off those games that weekend. This was a feature we didn’t think we needed originally, but it was a good call to add for all of the legacy pages.

As the semester started to wind down, we had a whole list of blog posts to work on. We had about seven people sign up for them in the last few weeks of the semester. Halfway through developing those, Zach figured out the original markdown format I wanted to try last summer. Everything became so much faster to finish and deploy. Now, all that’s left to deploy is this post that you’re reading right now.

This semester has been nothing short of incredible. I have a great team with great chemistry and a strong desire to get things done. I learned a lot about leadership, especially about going with the flow when we suddenly have no task backlog because everything was finished, or my teammates having ideas for new features they really want to implement. My biggest goal was to make sure that everyone got the experience they were looking for with echoes, and I think I achieved that and more. I am so grateful to have had such an eager and devoted team in my last semester. It began to feel more like a little family than just a project team, and I think that is the best part of all. I had to figure out how to begin onboarding Zach to take my place as Webmaster, which is bittersweet. After having him give a few updates to the All-Hands group and running our final few meetings of the semester, I am more than confident that he’s ready. While I hate to say goodbye to a project I love, I am comfortable it is left in good hands.

To Wrap It All Up

echoes has easily been the most influential experience I have ever had the privilege to be part of. It has taught me how to believe in myself and my abilities, to face new challenges head on, and given me a chance to try so many new things I would have never thought possible otherwise. This project went from being a class I was excited to collaborate in, to an experience that has provided me with so many connections and a family that I will miss very dearly. To the person reading this, if you ever get the chance to join echoes or any other VIP at RIT, do it. Fill out the application, reach out to members, get information. Whatever your major, whatever your interests and skills, there is a place for you in VIPs. This is something you don’t want to miss.