@sbjdorlo, sorry for the late reply. I hope your son’s visit to NU tomorrow helps with his decision.
I asked ds how his friend liked the program, and he replied, “He doesn’t have any problems with the Digital Art and Game Design major, though he suggests staying away from animation courses if you don’t want them to consume your life.” Not very helpful, I’m sure. He did say his friend was unhappy with the lack of co-op opportunities. His current co-op is at NU doing game-related research.
I moved to Connecticut shortly after graduating from UCI and haven’t been back in over 30 years, so I have no idea what it’s like now. I do know that class size at NU for ds has been way, way lower than mine was. And he does meet with his regular adviser and his honors adviser at least once a year.
I don’t know how accurate that online transfer checker for NU is. I decided to check ds’s community college on it again, and now only two of his classes would transfer, rather than 11. For example, it says they’ll only accept Calc 3, but he got credit for 1 and 2. Makes no sense. Initially ds was given credit for 8 or 9 of his classes, and then I noticed a year or two later that they gave him credit for more.
Regarding co-op, I thought that ds would be doing 3 co-ops in 5 years, but he’s doing 2 co-ops in 5 years. Students who do 3 co-ops have to take classes during 2 summer sessions (2 classes per session = 4 classes to make up for that 3rd semester of co-op); ds does not have to take any summer classes. I’m not bothered by the 5-year plan, but would have preferred for him to have 3 co-ops for the work experience. Ds was not aware that his major is now a 4-year program with one 6-month co-op and one 4-month co-op and summer sessions, but he thinks they changed it to take advantage of the summer internships that gaming companies offer. So your son could get out in 4 years with 2 co-ops if one of those co-ops was only 4 months instead of the standard 6. But be aware that you will have to pay for summer housing.