(Northeastern) Coming from Texas I was really nervous about going

How this student rated the school

Educational Quality	A	Faculty Accessibility	A
Useful Schoolwork	A	Excess Competition	B-
Academic Success	A+	Creativity/ Innovation	A+
Individual Value	B+	University Resource Use	A-
Campus Aesthetics/ Beauty	A+	Friendliness	A
Campus Maintenance	A+	Social Life	A+
Surrounding City	A+	Extra Curriculars	A+
Safety	A+

Describes the student body as: Friendly, Approachable Describes the faculty as: Friendly, Helpful

Female

ACT:29

id='quarter' class='snapshot' style='color: #009704; line-height:80px';float:left;

SAT1340

Quite Bright

Lowest Rating Excess Competition	B-

Highest Rating Academic Success	A+

She cares more about Excess Competition than the average student.

Date: Aug 18 2007
Major: Design Arts - Industrial Design/Graphic Design/etc (This Major's Salary over time)
Coming from Texas I was really nervous about going to a school so far away, and I was especially worried about my choice. I had gotten in to better Design Programs at Carnegie Mellon, Rochester Institute of Technology and I even got waitlisted/into NYU and Cornell. To be honest I really just fell in love with the school when I first walked on campus. I knew that the 5 year program was a bit of a stretch but if you have the work ethic those co-ops are really going to put you out there on the job market.

If Northeastern does one thing right, it's setting you up for a job after college. Of course you can graduate with a great degree from a prestigious school, but all you're going to have is THEORY. No application experience… whatsoever.

Boston is a great town—some of the other comments have been right that a lot of the students drink, but that's to be expected at any college. If you don't want to you don't have to and there's plenty of stuff to do on a friday night that'll keep you distracted.

Winter is cold but not unbearable. The food in the caf is good- they can't be criticized for lack of diversity, or taste but I'd definitely be wary of the freshman 15 - not all of it is healthy!

Dorms freshman year really aren't all that bad, it's pretty much what you'd get at any other college. Just get through the year knowing this: your housing as an upperclassman, is really going to kick butt!

There's plenty of extracurriculars available. I personally had my own radio show as a freshman and had a lot of fun with it, there's also a really fun outdoors club that goes on great trips and has a lodge up on the NH/Maine border. But, if you have other stuff you're interested in, there's still something for you to do! I even had a friend join the sailing team even though he'd never done it in his life…

The professors I got were good, you just have to be assertive in your classes. If you need help ask for it or else you're just going to struggle. Don't come in thinking that everything is going to be a cakewalk, yes some classes are kind of easy but no class is a blow off class.

The people here are all very nice, it's easy to make friends and everyone is pretty genuine. College is your chance to start off with a blank slate—and there's such a diverse array of students with so many different backgrounds there's no way anyone should have problems making friends.

Responses

Hey, I'm from a small town in Florida and I'm strongly considering NU but i'm a little terrified considering I only visited once. I'm not a big party girl but I am very social. I'm also worried about the price. Does co-op cost a lot? I'm thinking of doing Graphic Design/Advertising but I'm not positive. I guess more than anything i'm worried being so far away and coming from such a different place. any advice?

Hey,
Don't be too terrified, if you visited once and found you liked it then that should be a good aide to your decision. If you don't like to party don't worry about it, even though it is a large part of the college lifestyle it doesn't mean that you have to partake. You go to parties and not drink, and there's also plenty of things to do within walking distance, I guarantee you that you will never be sitting in, bored, on a saturday night. Co-op doesn't cost you anything, unless you're worried about housing, but it does really help because you get paid. They don't charge you for any tuition at that time. The design program isn't the best. I guarantee that you're going to learn, but to succeed you have to be passionate. If you have more questions feel free to e-mail me, the link on my post should let you. Hope this helps with your decision and good luck!

I am surprised that you didn't consider University of Cincinnati for Design, They supposedly have a superb design program and a strong coop program. In fact, their coop program predates northeastern. Thus, why didn't you consider University of Cincinnati?

University of Cincinnati does have a great design program, admittedly probably better than Northeastern s. When I was performing my initial college search however on Collegeboard. com I was searching by region, as well as median acceptance rate. Though I considered the Illinois area I don't think I ever really considered any schools in Ohio. I applied to mostly Ivy League schools as well as some other Tech schools like Rochester Institute of Technology and Carnegie Mellon. Eventually I decided that though some of these schools had better academic and / or design programs, I'd rather be somewhere where I felt like I'd be happy with my environment. In design especially your success is self made, there are plenty of kids who go to decent schools but lack the drive and the natural creativity needed to succeed.

Northeastern fit the bill for me, Boston is a great environment and I feel like I learn a lot in my classes and I do a lot of supplementary learning and freelance work. I am presently working with kids from UC and they're all really nice, smart and talented kids. They all also seem to have really enjoyed their school experience, I feel like if you're considering that school as well, I'd definitely give it a shot.

Another huge consideration for me was the possibility of being able to enroll in the Multimedia Studies dual major (which I am now in).

Hey, I'm also from a small town in the south and I keep getting different feedback about the north and its really starting to mess with my head. I visited NU and loved it and thought for sure thats where I wanted to go. But I am in the south … and my family is very, very conservative and they are totally against me going up north for that reason. I wanted to know what you thought about the political balance and if it is even an issue. I never thought of it being an issue but like I said my family is just really starting to get in my head.

I wouldn't personally allow for my parents to decide where I'm going to end up because of their political opinions. I came up here being rather conservative, and still maintain a moderate stance on politics. If you are more towards the liberal leaning you can always use the Winston Churchill quote against them

If you're not a liberal when you're 20 then you have no heart, if you're not a conservative when you're 40 then you have no brain.

Here of course you are going to encounter a large volume of liberal people—it is, after all, the northeast. I hardly, however, consider it to be an issue—if you don't want to discuss politics then you won't have to, most people are understanding in that respect. Whatever college campus you go to you're going to interact with those who sit on either side of political extremes, if you are steadfast in your beliefs then you're fine. No matter where you go to college, you can still be yourself and maintain yourself. Northeastern certainly isn't here to churn you out as a blue-bleeding liberal.

Hey I was wondering if you did the co-op program and if so, how did you like it? Graphic design is my big interest so I also wanted to know how much you got out of the classes and professors, how motivated other design students were and if you found the work challenging or not? If you've graduated, have you found that the courses you took prepared you for a career in the design world?
On another note, how easy would you say it was to make friends. I've gotten mixed reviews so I don't really know what to think.

Yes, I did participate in the co-op program and it is what makes Northeastern totally worth it. You learn a lot from hands on work experience and you definitely have the opportunity to grow as a designer, while also getting that (sometimes very necessary) break from school. As a recent graduate I think that I've certainly had my complaints about the classes and professors - the Art Design department specifically has lately been going through a lot of overhauls which I think will actually make it much more beneficial to incoming students. But being nearly 1 year out now, I appreciate the foundation that I got (from Art History, to Color Theory) and at the same time wish that I'd had more flexibility as I got closer to my Jr/Sr year so that I could have a "specialization" - for example, we all have to take web classes, but if we don't want to be web designers, then we shouldn't (that can also be Vise Versa - if I don't want to take a Motion Design class, I should be able to take a Campaigns class instead). The good side of this for right now is that you leave knowing EVERYTHING, you know all the basics and then some, you get a broad range of programs under your belt. My concern is that it makes you a generalist, when the program should be churning out T-shaped people.

That rant aside, let's move on to the rest of your questions.

Yes, the work is challenging. If you take pride in your work and you're passionate about design, you will definitely leave as a strong designer. The motivation of other students is not necessarily your problem, as Design is really a very individualized task / profession. I learned a lot in every one of my design classes (even art history) and am able to apply it to my work now.

I was able to find jobs without a problem when I graduated. In this economy, that's a rare thing, but NEU prepares you well and if you apply yourself within the program - you shouldn't have a problem. The school does a good job of keeping you up-to-date on standards for programs and such so you don't need to worry about being outdated, and anything that you missed in curriculum (for example: working with a printer) you'll likely pick it up on co-op.

Friends is the difficult question for me. There's definitely a lot of people at this school, and individuals with very diverse backgrounds. I think it would be hardest for transfer students to make friends as most people make their core group of friends at orientation or during freshmen year. The campus isn't unfriendly, but I think it's definitely clique-ish. I was still able to make a great group of friends outside of the school who had different interests, but I still keep in touch with those that were in my GD classes, or some people that I roomed with as well. Your social life (much like your classes) is what you make of it - if you sit in your room and sulk because you have no one to hang out with, it's because you're not leaving your room - not because there's a lack of people who want to hang out with you.

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