Wondering what the honors program is like if you’re in engineering. Are there honors engineering/math/science classes or are the honors courses mostly in the humanities, liberal arts etc. that you need to meet graduation requirements? Also wondering if engineering students tend to do co-ops at the same time because of the way required courses are offered? I’m a little worried about the fact that people will be coming and going from campus over the course of a couple of years so you don’t overlap with people between freshman and senior year.
There are some honors courses in every subject but they are usually limited to introductory courses for each subject. For example, Calculus has honors sections. Overall, there aren’t many honors classes and it isn’t one of the program perks. The freshman dorms and other perks are usually bigger factors, but in general, Northeastern honors isn’t much different from the rest of the student body, though they may be ramping up the program.
People across all majors will have different co-op cycles, so there aren’t any guarantees on everyone in any group having the same cycle. You don’t need to pick until the end of your first year, and often friends will pick the same cycle.
Engineering works a little different than some of the other programs. All students take the same freshman intro stuff and pick their engineering speciality for their second year. These students are assigned a co-op cycle (they have these codes AA, AB, etc.) and you have to stick with that cycle (can’t say no I want to skip this semester and do it the following one instead. If you need a different cycle you have to be switched with somebody on that cycle. This keeps the supply and demand for the co-op jobs steady.
There are typically honors sections through Calc 3 (so calc 1, 2, and 3) and these sections tend to be smaller is size (otherwise they can be up to 100 kids). I would assume there are honors sections in the intro engineering classes also (and you can take honors english for your required english classes also).
Yes, the kids come and go and it is part of life at the school. One semester your friend may be doing a co-op in China and you won’t see him for six months. The kids adjust very well with this - you will most likely have a big circle of friends and so some will be around and some won’t. Also, many engineering co-ops are commutable from the school and so many kids will still be on campus when they co-op.
They are very good with scheduling required stuff around the year - for example the first part of the required senior thesis class being offered summer 1 and the second part fall (which allows you to graduate in December)