Summer Vacation Question

<p>So Northeastern is as of now my top choice for schools. I love its location in the city while it still maintains a campus feel. Also, it's an up and coming school which is always beneficial. I love pretty much everything about it and could really see myself there. I plan on applying to the engineering school but if I don't enjoy engineering I will switch after my first year to something like Economics or Computer Science. I figured it is easier to switch out of Engineering rather than getting into it later on.
There is one thing that really conflicts me: I have a summer job which I love. I really would like to keep it through college, but I've heard that students are on co-op or taking summer classes then. I 25 minutes outside of Boston so its not like I wont be in the area, but its 40 hrs a week. My question is, how do summers work for NEU students? How much of a break will I have as a student, and will I be taking classes or on co-op? Also, will it be every summer? Thanks so much for the help and I really look forward to hearing your response!</p>

<p>Anybody on coop will have a full six month full time job - so they could not work during that half of the summer. Also, to fit in multiple coops and graduate on time many kids fill the second half of the coop summer with summer classes. Most students have off the first summer (and it is a long break - May-August) since you don’t do coop until sophomore year at the earliest.</p>

<p>Thanks for the response, kiddie! Sorry for it being extremely late.</p>

<p>You can set up your schedule any way you want to depending on how many coops you want to do.</p>

<p>There isn’t quite as much flexibility in the engineering school. If you are doing the 5 year/3 coop program you’ll get put into a cycle which I believe is difficult to change. The summer after freshman year is completely open. After that, you’ll either be on a Jan-June coop or July-August coop for the next 3 years. Without AP credits, 2 summer sessions are required to get all the courses in. A summer session is 1/2 semester. It all adds up to 8 semesters, which is a typical 4 year program.</p>

<p>I’ve heard the non-engineering programs are more flexible as to the number and timing of the coops.</p>

<p>The first summer is long - classes finish at the end of April and start up again after labor day.</p>

<p>In general, engineering has close to 0 flexibility. You apparently have something like 2-3 electives in the whole thing, and you don’t even have a lot of options to choose from within that.
If you’re in engineering, summer after your freshman year would be about the only free summer time you would have.</p>