I was recently admitted into N.U. in as a health science major, and I’m a bit nervous but I think I’m going to go because Northeastern is my dream school. As of right now, I think I’ll be traveling to Greece or Australia. I had a few questions for anyone who is an N.U. alum or knows about the topic:
Is the housing situation for the spring semester difficult? I heard that I wouldn’t be living with other freshmen, so I was worried about making friends.
Are the classes at the international school hard? If they’re not, then is it hard to make a transition to the workload in Boston for the spring semester?
When you return back to Boston in the spring, is it hard to make friends outside of the group you traveled with for N.U. in?
Is it hard not having the “traditional” first year college experience with moving in day, etc.?
Is it hard getting involved with Northeastern when you return in the spring? Would you recommend joining a lot of clubs, Greek life, etc.?
Overall, is it worth it? I know it’s super expensive, but at the same time it sounds like an irreplaceable experience.
Thanks for any help.
I did NUin Greece last semester, and had an amazing time!!
Housing isn’t difficult; sometime in the middle of the semester, you fill out the housing form where you put your preferences for living in a freshman dorm, suite style, or apartment, and your preferred LLC. It’s not difficult, most people just choose to live in apartments/not with other freshman in 1st year dorms just because they want to live with their NUin friends and apartments/suites have the most vacancies. Doing NUin and traveling/living with other freshman makes it a lot easier, in my opinion, to make friends (: I got placed in a freshman dorm (I think because of my LLC), but my health science/PT friends are in IV or apartments.
I can’t speak for Australia, but I didn’t find classes in Greece at ACT to be difficult. In the moment, it might seem like you have a lot of work, but in comparison to Northeastern, it’s honestly significantly easier (and it also just counts for transfer credit so you just have to pass/your grades don’t appear on your NU transcript). It wasn’t extremely difficult to transition, it was more so just surprising to see the contrast and you’re definitely a lot busier.
It really depends on your major/how much you put yourself out there. I’m a business major, so I found it pretty easy to make friends outside of NUin Greece group, and have made a lot of friends that are from other NUin locations.
When you move in, it’s still a “traditional” experience, because they have moving people to help you and everything, my orientation was snowed out, but apart from that, there’s not much different. It’s nice because you have your NUin friends and don’t have to worry about that. I didn’t really feel like there was anything that I was missing out on.
It’s not difficult; my honest answer is that you can get as involved as you want to. There’s a club fair in the first week or so, so you can get familiar with what there is. Some people join clubs, some rush for Greek life. Greek life depends if you’re joining a frat or sorority; a lot of my guy friends pledged business and social frats, but girls usually wait to rush because not all sororities do spring rush. It’s really up to you.
I absolutely loved and 100% thought it was worth it. Greece is a really large group because it doesn’t fill up, so keep that in mind, but it was so much fun. Thessaloniki was beautiful, and it’s really cool to say that you studied abroad in Greece because most people don’t. Being able to get credits while traveling and having fun/going out, before going back to NU and figuring out co-op was really the way to do it (: Hope that helps!!
How does having pass fail grades on your transcript affect your GPA or class rank?
@shafthalf Northeastern doesn’t have class rank, because everyone takes their own path towards graduating/co-op and everything. Pass/fail and your grades in general for NUin doesn’t show up on your transcript at all (besides the 1 credit class you take through NU), due to it being transfer credit, so it doesn’t get factored into your GPA.
@shafthalf something to consider is that counting your first semester as transfer credit means your GPA will be a very limited sample when you apply for the first round of co-op. For example, I went out on co-op my sophomore spring and so I applied sophomore fall. At that point, I only had 2 semesters worth of classes to make up my GPA that was on my resume. A friend of my mine from NUin only had 1 semester, so her grades after returning from NUin were CRITICAL. Faltering in even 1 class dropped her GPA quite a bit and she wasn’t competitive for the best co-ops.
Oh shoot, thats a good point. Could i elect to postpone when i do coop until ive completed 2 semesters in boston?
@shafthalf definitely! We selected our intended co-op cycle in I think freshman fall, but it’s obviously subject to change. It could end up helping you (for example, if you do really well freshman spring, your GPA could be higher than it might normally be) or hurting you as in the case mentioned above. Some struggle with transitioning to classes in Boston after relatively easy classes during NUin so the latter case is more common, but it’s possible to do well too. Of course, no matter when you go on co-op your non-NUin peers will have an extra semester of grades to factor in, but at least by following the summer II/fall pattern you’ll have 2 semesters to their 3 rather than 1 to 2.
Disclaimer: I speak only on behalf of the business college. I think some other schools, for example engineering, have a more strict system where you are assigned a co-op cycle and can only switch via direct swap with a student on the opposite cycle.
Thanks so much @novafan1225 . How much easier are NU.in classes? I was most interested in the Canada semester, which is at Mcgill and, as i understand it, McGill is a fairly prestigious school so i would expect mcGill faculty teaching students qualified for Northeastern to be fairly rigorous. So, are they always (or 99% of the time) easier? And how much does the NU.in partner institution have to do with its rigor?
@shafthalf again full disclosure, I didn’t do NUin but I am an RA and so we talk about the program a lot in our trainings (focusing on how to ease their transition to Boston.) I also have friends who did it of course, but just wanted to put that disclaimer again.
The Canada site is new as of I think 2016, so I don’t know anyone personally who’s done it. McGill is a prestigious school, arguably more so than Northeastern, but from what I’ve heard most of the classes at NUin Canada aren’t really integrated well with McGill. I think I heard someone say their classes were in a separate building and were almost all NUin students, which they were disappointed by. While Canada and other countries do grade a bit harsher than the U.S., Northeastern accounts for that, and a “pass” for transfer is a grade of C or better-- which is 55%. It shouldn’t be hard to pass, though it may be harder for an A (though there’s no incentive to try for that if it’s P/F.)
I’d recommend searching NUin Canada on YouTube; all NUin students are required to make a video about their experience and post it there. They might answer some of your questions. I do know that the accommodations for the McGill site are really nice, like the ~dorms~ you’d stay in (though it’s closer to a luxury apartment.) You might also try reaching out to admissions or the NUin office to connect you with a student who’s been to Canada specifically.
In speaking to the NU In office, 1/3 of the admissions granted were NU In. They are expecting about 1,000 to accept across the program so a pretty robust class. Good to know that your child will definitely not be alone.
The more I think about the program, I think that it is as much about optimizing housing as it is about generating better stats as some have said. My back of the envelope has an average class size of 4,000 (20,000 total undergrads across 5 years assuming coops). They enroll 3,000 for the Fall per the common data set plus the 1,000 NU Ins above. That ties to the 4,000 as well. At any given time, but generally in the Spring, at least 50% of the 3rd years are out on Coop. If you assume that 25-50% of the 3rd years are in off campus housing, that indicates 750-1,000 empty beds that need to get filled. Ties pretty closely to the NU In enrollment projections.
@SoCratz
You’re completely right - it’s a bit of everything. People always try to pin it to one thing, but there’s so much to it: housing balance is absolutely part of it. Don’t forget about fall graduations either, much more common at Northeastern due to the variety of attendance patterns with co-op etc. Your math is a bit off in small ways (the raw off-campus students isn’t the relevant number but rather the number of students on co-op elsewhere who would have lived in on-campus housing otherwise), but the conclusion probably fits well with the revised math considering that there are actually 2-3 years worth of students on co-op per spring semester. They also aim for 2800 typically not 3000, which is on the CDS due to the overenrollment last year. Needless to say, Northeastern has a lot more complications when it comes to calculating bedspaces and filling them regularly, which NU.in absolutely helps to balance out.