Yes, you have to pay for a single if you get assigned one. Rooms in IV (honors) are nice and more expensive and singles are more than doubles. You don’t get to select a freshman dorm and even picking an LLC doesn’t guarantee a particular dorm as they move them around year to year. The housing questionnaire is pretty lame - maybe 4-5 questions and they matched my night owl daughter with an early bird roommate freshman year (a question I assume they both answered honestly).
I asked @PengsPhils about IV earlier, but now I have a slightly different motivation: if money is a concern (which it is, even with the merit aid), do you have to live in IV if you are in honors program? I would be interested in economy dorming for my son.
@binky17 yes unless they changed it you have to live in honors housing (IV) freshman year to be in the honors program. After freshman year it is optional.
Is it easy to take classes in other colleges? My daughter was accepted to the College of Science but I know she will also want to take lots of humanities classes like art history, literature, etc.
Have you heard of anyone negotiating up their scholarships at all?
@jillpnk Taking classes across colleges is very easy! I take classed regularly in CSSH (College of Social Sciences and Humanities), despite being a CS major with an undeclared minor in ethics, and have yet to contact CSSH in any way.
@helloclassof2017 You can try, but I have yet to hear of that. Negotiating up financial aid may be slightly more plausible, though still very unlikely.
@PengsPhils what would be your best advice to a CS girl freshman year? Which clubs were great, which not so much? (D17 has programming experience and has competed in a few national capture the flag competitions). Where is a good place online for her to start looking at the CS experience at NEU? TIA
Did any of you look at other “co-op” based programs like Drexel, U of Cincinnati, or RIT? If so, what was deciding factor for NEU (other than location or scholarship offer)? How helpful is the school in assisting the students with landing good co-op and permanent placements? Though I am sure it is always more dependent on what you put into it, I am still curious about the quality and availability of resources. Does NEU Engineering have some type of “first year” experience that supports new students and helps them get to know other people in their major, form study groups, etc.? If so, was it beneficial or just “so-so”? Lastly, what is the experience for students from outside of New England?
Hi @jillpnk, Congrats to your daughter. I wanted to say thanks for answering some questions before acceptance. It’s nice to be on the other side of this process. My son is in honors as well and has a similar concern about ease of access to other colleges. He is a humanities student but wants to take CS and business courses (introductory).
Thanks @LkL5789!
@suzyQ7 is your child hoping for a single?
Northeastern has one of the top career services in the country. You must take a one credit prepare for co-op class before your first co-op (business school has two you need to take). In this class you learn how to interview, write your resume, etc. It is taught by your co-op advisor who will help you find all of your co-op placements. Northeastern has a database of full-time jobs which is for students/alums only and many of these companies recruit on campus. They also maintain co-op job listings that you apply for through your advisor. Some jobs and co-ops are very competitive, but there are plenty to go around.
Unless it has changed, engineering has a core program for the first year for all engineering majors and you don’t specialize (pick the type of engineering) until sophomore year
Just from my daughter’s experience, all of her friends had great co-ops - working for wayfair, amazon, intel, hubspot, hasbro, john Hancock, Liberty Mutual, etc. (these are kids in different majors, from econ to accounting, to engineering to CS.) Every one of her friends who graduated with her in May 2016 is gainfully employed and living in the Boston area. Many of her friends who are graduating this year (Dec and May) already have job offers again in the Boston area. In contrast to many of her HS friends, who six months later, are still job hunting.
Does NJ count as not New England - my daughter loves it in Boston (she is living and working there after graduating) and she is a kid who hates the cold. All of her friends love it there (again are staying after graduation) and they hail from Texas, North Carolina, Iowa, California, etc.
Our biggest worry about Northeastern is getting a useful co-op. My son is in the humanities (English, Economics, Spanish) but is well-rounded and could have applied for journalism or business. We were told anecdotally that it might be harder to land a "good"co-op from English than, say business. But when we visited, they reassured us that he can compete for any co-op. Would he have a chance? So, for instance, I have a good friend who will hire him tomorrow at her downtown company. NU strikes me as a place that would facilitate that. Do you guys think so? Really interested to hear what you think, thank you!
Hacks is the primary CS club. It has little formal structure and is really closer to a CS social club where people try to make things, and can get help with just about anything CS related and sometimes not. Weekly meetings and talks are usually the focus. There’s also NUWIT, which would be the best option specifically female-oriented.
Links: http://hacks.io/ http://nuwit.ccs.neu.edu/
My personal favorite, though only for the more advanced, is Scout. It’s a design studio with real clients, many from the NEU entrepreneurship venture accelerators, some completely unattached, that is Northeastern students. They need plenty of tech, so you see plenty of CS people in there as well as designers. It is a part-time job with an application, not a club, but is an amazing experience to have.
Link: http://www.northeastern.edu/scout/
I think you get the hang of it the quickest on campus, first semester. Fundies 1, the first CS class, has a huge support network and will introduce you to a lot. If you need help, come to office hours! I would highly recommend not trying to get ahead on classwork before getting here, because the approach is really unique, and there are many ways to mess it up. It’s a very carefully crafted course. If you come in with an open mind and no prior assumptions, you will have a much better chance at success. Forget you know anything about programming for that first semester. When I came in, I had picked up a lot of bad habits programming on my own, and I really made a big shift that first semester.
Once here, join the NEU CS Facebook group, and don’t be afraid to use that as a resource. It’s a great place to post any questions you have from professors, classes, co-op, and general CS help. I guess it really wouldn’t hurt to join that now if she really wanted.
Let me know if you need any more specifics on any of that!
I looked at both Drexel and RIT, and ended up applying to RIT. When you look at the programs side by side, it seemed clear to me that NEU had by far the most expansive when it came to those three. Of course, I only go to one of the schools, so I can’t say for sure. When it comes to STEM, I would think that RIT has similar co-op opportunities as the field is their specialty.
Of course, location, gender balance, and many other fit factors were big considerations. At the end of the day, all four of the schools you listed have good co-op programs, and fit really should be a primary focus over the relatively smaller differences in the programs.
When it comes to co-op, you’ve got an advisor specifically for it. You also have a full 1 credit course during your first co-op search, where you work on everything: writing a resume, interviewing, professionalism, and all the little ins and outs you don’t even think about at this point. Even for those who don’t put in less effort, you can’t avoid all of this. By even your second co-op search, you feel like a complete pro. Co-op advisors are always there to help with weighing offers and any sort of general advice through every co-op search.
For an example of all the amazing co-ops, here is a list of companies that have offered co-ops to someone I directly know, in CS/CE/EE alone: Apple, Google, Intuit, Facebook, Snapchat, Dropbox, Airbnb, Hubspot, Goldman Sachs, Lincoln Labs, the JPL, iRobot, Lockheed Martin.
Still, there are plenty of co-op’s without flashy names that offer experiences that are just as good, sometimes even better. It’s easy to be impressed by the big names, but I think the depth and overall quality has much more value.
After graduation, you get lifetime access to the career center and their services. That said, by the time you graduate, most Northeastern students know the process so well that they usually don’t need any help. Half of all Northeastern students get a full-time offer on graduation from a previous co-op. Still, there are also plenty of full-time job postings in Northeastern’s careers system if needed.
I don’t know much there as a CS major, but I do know that we have a first-year materials lab to help freshman with their projects early on. Hopefully we have an engineer on here who may know more on that.
Exactly the same as someone from New England, except maybe feeling a bit colder than others come November/December freshman year. While NEU has a concentration of students from the northeast, there are tons from the west coast, the south, the midwest, international, you name it. You’ll probably only notice during the awkward icebreakers when everyone lists off where they are from at orientation.
I’m from FL, for reference.
Hope that helps!
@kiddie those are great co-ops! Any chance that any of your child’s friends are English majors? 
You can only apply for co-op jobs where the company specifies your major (you have to meet whatever requirements the company has - requires a car, citizen, particular GPA, major, etc.). However, most companies list a broad range of majors on their job postings.
Each co-op position is owned by a co-op advisor (most likely not your advisor) and you may need to get approval from the owning advisor before applying to their job if it is outside your major. For example, when applying to co-ops owned by the business school, my daughter - an econ major, needed the business co-op advisor to approve her application.
You can “create” your own co-op (which your child could do with your “friend”). Northeastern supports this fully because they hope that the new company will continue as a partner in their co-op program after your six months is over.
Humanities is broad - econ majors get great co-ops (often ones that are for business majors also.) My daughter’s friends with harder majors to get jobs for (deaf studies, psychology, etc.) got good co-ops and jobs after graduation.
Co-op is just like a regular job search, which means it will be easier to find the big name co-op’s in in-demand fields. There’s no way around that that doesn’t undermine the value of the co-op process, which is actual employers with meaningful jobs investing into students and getting meaningful work in return.
Still, even in less than ideal fields for a job search, there are still good co-ops, and any Northeastern student has access to them (minus GPA minimums for applications, etc). You would probably get the best picture of the co-ops by contacting the department and asking for a list of common co-ops.
Could you elaborate on this? I’m not fully sure what it’s asking. Northeastern allows anyone to make their own co-op, and Northeastern will help facilitate that. However, they have to make sure the job is appropriate and not a “coffee intern” position. So the answer would depend on what exactly the job is.
One caveat, don’t expect your first co-op to be great. You will only have taken very basic classes in your major at that time and so you won’t have the knowledge for the better co-ops. Some first co-ops are more grunt work, but they are still full-time positions where you gain experience. Don’t underestimate the benefits of learning to get up every morning for work, dress appropriately, commute and get there on time, figure out what to do for lunch, interact with a boss and co-workers, meet deadlines, prioritize work, manage time, etc. All of these can be learnt at any co-op, even ones where your job seems menial.
No English majors in her friend group - however, I would imagine English majors get co-ops in marketing and publishing. I think as long as he is not just interested in “creative writing”, he should be able to get co-ops.