<p>I am a rising senior in high school, and I'm very interested in attending NEU for college. I would like to major in Chemical Engineering, and I wondered if there were any ChemE majors that could give there input about NEU's program. I would even appreciate the input of any other types of engineering students as well. Any advice or personal opinions about the engineering programs would be helpful.</p>
<p>Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>I was looking at there ChemE program as well and found some good information about research/student coop experiences via their website. </p>
<p>[Research</a> Opportunities for Summer 2009](<a href=“http://www.che.neu.edu/undergraduate/research_opportunities/]Research”>http://www.che.neu.edu/undergraduate/research_opportunities/)</p>
<p>Look at the faculty i think most profesors have Ivy and MIT PHD’s</p>
<p>I’m going to be a middler ChemE at Northeastern. I am currently on vacation but I will be starting my coop at Lockheed Martin starting in a couple of weeks. Here is a breakdown of the chemE department at Northeastern:</p>
<p>Academics
The professors, for the most part, are very very knowledgeable. Most of them have worked in industry before becoming professors. One of our most distinguished ChemE professors is Dr. Al Sacco who was actually in space for a couple weeks doing research for Nasa. There is a lot of really interesting reserach going in the professor’s labs too. Classes are a lot of work but are doable.</p>
<p>Extracurriculars
I’m on the Northeastern ChemE car team where we have to build a car that has to travel a certain distance carrying a certain amount of weight and it has to be powered by a chemical reaction. We meet tuesdays and thursdays and have a good time while getting to build a cool little car. We also have a lobster cookout in the summer where the whole department gets together and we cook lobsters/burgers/hot dogs. Good time.</p>
<p>Coop
I’ll be working at Lockheed Martin in the fall which was one of the top coops for ChemEs. Others are working at Genzyme, Duracell, Gillette, Pfizer, Genentech, and lots of other companies. ChemE’s are also, I believe, the highest paid coops in the school.</p>
<p>Overall, the program is great and I have met some good people. If you have any other questions feel free to ask away.</p>
<p>thanks for the replies so far.</p>
<p>RedSox: You wrote that the classes were hard but doable. Could you elaborate on your schedule? What kind of classes do you have? And what is the ratio of core classes for your major to electives?</p>
<p>Also, I know that you have a coop at Lockheed Martin (is it a branch in Boston???), but how have you seen the coop program be for other ChemE students? Is it basically that the good students get the good coops?</p>
<p>Finally, although it doesn’t have anything really to do with ChemE, would you mind saying what type of aid you recieved? I am just trying to get a basic idea for financial packages at the school.</p>
<p>Thanks a lot.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.coe.neu.edu/coe/pdfs/BS5_ChE_2014.pdf[/url]”>http://www.coe.neu.edu/coe/pdfs/BS5_ChE_2014.pdf</a></p>
<p>What I mean by hard but doable is the courses get much more difficult and involved but with time and lots of work you can get As. My study group and I would spend nearly 4 or 5 hours together 3 or 4 times each week to do the homework/study for tests. That might seem like overkill, but we all got As and the rest of the class didn’t do so well. Thermo and Transport are your first two “new” subjects as chemE’s. Every class you have taken in college up to this point is a review/builds on a previous subject (i.e. calc III to calc II). But with these classes, you learn terms and techniques you have never even heard of. For transport, I ended up writing an individual 41 page lab report and my group and I wrote another 30 page one. Again, very very involved and very time consuming but worth it. </p>
<p>And it is not the best students get the best jobs for coop. It all depends on how well you can sell yourself and how much your potential employer believes you. This is obviously easier done with good grades and research experience but there are plenty of students with low 3 GPAs who get solid coop jobs.</p>
<p>I got 12k/year Deans scholarship and then some federal stuff. I dont really pay attention to that, I have very kind parents who take care of all of this for me.</p>
<p>Alright that is good to know. I am a very self-motivated student, and as long as I somewhat enjoy the major, I don’t think I will have too much of a problem keeping up on the coursework. A study group sounds like a great idea, and I will definitely have to try to join one when i go to college. Even though the major requires a lot of studying, do you still feel that you have ample social time for taking breaks and enjoying college with friends? Even though I want to work hard in college, I still want to have some type of a social life (which is why I am not applying to MIT haha).</p>
<p>Also, for the coop, how do you go about “selling yourself” to the companies? Do you get personal interviews, or is it just submitting resumes?</p>
<p>Thanks again for all the help.</p>
<p>I have a great social life. I was fortunate to have my Transport lab on tuesday morning to that let me go out Thurs, Fri, and Sat nights. Don’t expect much of a social life on Mon/Tue/Wed but thats pretty common across most majors. I love my friends and only stayed in on Fri/Sat during finals week.</p>
<p>And yes, you go about selling yourself by going on interviews. You’ll take a coop class that will help you build a resume/cover letters/etc. and then you will get called to go on interviews at some of the places you applied to. I know of some people who applied to really competitive coop jobs with mediocore stats with the motto “just get me an interview and i’ll handle the rest” and they did just fine. There really isn’t a “bad” coop though. Some people may not enjoy it or have done mundane work, but really you get to put it on your resume and even if you have a horrible time, its only 6 months and you realize exactly what you DONT want to do.</p>
<p>Thanks thats really reassuring. I wanted to make sure NEU was the place for a great education and a good social life. Well I hope i get some decent aid so I can go there for chemE. It sounds like an awesome school to me.</p>