I recently got a comment asking if courses are accelerated in order to have time for the coop terms, and if there was a lot of pressure to keep up with the work, and I’d like to use this post to address that question.

Coop rotations at Northeastern work out so that we have an almost normal academic calendar. We are on a semester schedule, but most students spend five years at Northeastern to complete a bachelor’s degree and 3 six month coop assignments. We have fall and spring semesters that run September to December and January to April, and two short semesters in the summer. When you start at Northeastern you are assigned to a coop division that determines when you go on coop and when you are in classes. I’m assigned to the division that has coop in the July - December and classes January – June. The exact patterns vary slightly by different colleges and departments, but I can describe how the pattern works for engineers. Freshman year everyone takes classes both in the fall and in the spring and then has the summer off. Sophomore year everyone takes classes again in the fall semester. In January half of my graduating class then went on coop but I stayed in classes until the end of April. I then had the option to have May & June as a vacation, but chose to start my coop job early and worked until December. Currently, in my middler (third year) I’m in classes for the spring semester and I will be taking classes again in Summer I (May & June). I’ll do my second coop from July to December of this year, then classes January – June of 2010, work July – December 2010, and then my final semester will be Spring 2011 and I’ll graduate in early May. This adds up to seven regular academic semesters, and two summer semesters. Since summer semesters are half as long, a full load is two classes instead of four, so that is a total of 8 semesters worth of coursework, the same as a regular four year program. Even though it is spread out over five years you take the same number of classes and pay the same amount of tuition as a standard program.

Our semesters aren’t accelerated to fit in work terms, but our vactions are limited. The only vacations I have left for the rest of my time at Northeastern are the Semester breaks (2-3 weeks in December/January and 1 week in April/May) and Spring break. In the other division people get 2-3 weeks in December/January and about 2 weeks in August for their semester breaks, and most do not get to have spring break.
I hope this helps.

In other news, last week I attended the National Convention of the National Society of Black Engineers in Las Vegas, NV. The chapter won National TORCH Chapter of the year, for our outreach project in a local public internet center and Region 1 Chapter of the Year for our overall accomplishments and reporting of them. I'll post some pictures soon.

Posted by Sarah Brown at 8:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Admissions decisions are being release and I'm sure many of you have been accepted here as well as plenty of other places. Where you decide to go is a big decision that can be pretty tough. As someone who used every bit of available time to make that decision, who is also about to have to chose between offers for coop, here are some of the things that helped me chose.

Everyone always says to look at financial aid, and it really is an important factor. Not only does it effect your finances after you graduate, depending on how many loans you need, but it really will effect you immediately. If you can get away without needing to work crazy hours, college can be a lot more fun and less stressful. At Northeastern, most students go on coop, and while pay varies dramatically from major to major, at least in engineering we are generally able to make enough on coop to pay for at least all expenses while on coop and room & board when back in classes. Living at home while on coop allows you to make an even bigger dent in your expenses while in classes, though its not something I've chosen to do.

The most important thing I would say is a visit, but not just with admissions. Admissions representative at every school are always going to sell the school in a predetermined strategic way, that's their job. Make sure that you visit the academic department that you're interested in. Faculty and students that host admissions guests are still going to be trying to sell the school, but probably in a more sincere way. When I visited I went on lab tours in my department and that was what sold me. Every other school I visited, showed a few things here and there within engineering, but none brought us into a lab and had us actually working with stuff. They also had students show us their capstone projects (major design project for seniors in engineering and some other departments). It was these interactions that really sold me on the school. You can tell when someone is telling you something scripted, and when they're truly really excited about it.

Right now I'm trying to decide where to go for coop. I went on two interviews, and I've gotten offers from both of them. I've already decided that I will take one of these two and I've canceled the other interviews that I had tentatively scheduled. As I make this decision I have to weigh the locations, one is closer to campus, and the other is closer to home. One is a biomedical engineering position, and I'm leaning towards the biomedical industry long term. The other is defense, but completely unclassified, fundamental communication system and signal processing. One I'll get to see more of the whole function of a company, and nontechnical stuff that an engineer has to deal with, and but the other I think I will gain more technical skills.

I wish you all the best in your decision and hope that I can make mine before I leave for a conference on Wednesday night.

Please feel free to ask questions, I'd love to help you make your decision. I've found talking with other people to be one of the most helpful things to do. I look forward to hearing from you as you make your decision.

Posted by Sarah Brown at 8:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The next month is looking a little crazy.

In addition to my normal full schedule of classes and meetings with homework and research squeezed in between, I now have to fit in interviews for coop too. With the economy how it is many people are worried about jobs, but for the most part in Engineering our advisors have been able to place everyone, some people were placed late, but the advisors assured us this semester that some of the late placements were the fault of the students more than the economy. Right now for Electrical and Computer Engineering there are 225 jobs posted. More will continue to be posted as our coop advisors are constantly looking to secure more positions. It's nice to be in a department where jobs are available, especially with the economy how it is, but it doesn't make it any easier to fit interviews around class, meetings and homework.

Additionally tonight officially marks the beginning of the Student Government Association President Direct Election Campaign period. I'm working on one of the campaigns so over the next few days there's a lot to do to get the website (http://www.foxfornu.com/) and facebook group and stuff all launched. Feel free to look around and let that inspire you to come up with any questions you may have. We'll campaign for the next three weeks and voting begins March 25th and is open until the 31st.

Basically everything here is just running along smoothly and the year is actually not too far from over. Finals start in just 5 weeks, as scary as that is.

As always, feel free to comment or ask questions.

Posted by Sarah Brown at 8:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)