BU vs Northeastern vs UCSD

katliamom
Wed, 06 Apr 2016 18:11:07 +0000

How do you feel about co-ops? The major reason to go to Northeastern is the opportunity to work full time in your field while you’re still a student. That obviously affects the school experience, and tends to attract more professionally oriented students, as opposed to those more of an intellectual/theoretical bent. For most students, NEU is a 5 year program, but it IS possible to do 1 coop, summer classes and to graduate in 4 years. Still, coops would make double majoring, for example, a little harder. BU will offer a similar experience to Northeastern, but without the co-ops. The campus is more similar to European university campuses (meaning, not a real “campus” but a collection of buildings in a city) and it’s a much bigger school, until recently considered much better than Northeastern.

UCSD is your most unique choice, I think. Unlike Northeastern and BU, it’s a public university. That will mean less “customer service” - handholding, counseling, etc - so you will have to be a bit more proactive about getting your classes, meeting deadlines, making connections. Double majoring may be slightly more difficult at UCSD than at BU because it may be slightly harder to get all the classes you need to graduate in 4 years. Obviously, flying home from southern California will be more expensive/longer than from the East Coast. UCSD is in a spectacularly beautiful setting, on the coast, (you will LOVE the weather). It’s part of the famous University of California, and it has the “colleges” system, which few public schools have, and which doesn’t exist at BU or NEU. (http://provost.ucsd.edu/colleges/)

It’s a tough choice - and all schools will offer you a good education and opportunities - but for sheer uniqueness, I’d recommend UCSD.