NEU honors program vs BU vs Tufts

eireann
Sun, 02 Jan 2011 21:05:53 +0000

Upstatemom, I see exactly what you mean about your daughter. I graduated from Northeastern in May, and I had some of the same issues with the school that your daughter is concerned about. They don’t offer a huge selection of women’s and gender studies classes, and I wish that I had taken more. I agree with the point that she will found her crowd, and her friends, but the majority of students will not be like her – in the two psych classes that I took – one was intro and one was a much higher level, there were a lot of dumb questions. In specific classes, like women’s studies, she will get some good discussions because of the kind of people that take those classes, but the average class discussion, I felt would have had a bit more depth at an LAC. I would guess that BU is comparable, and Tufts probably better in that regard, but I know that the entering class profile improves every year, and the student body itself is probably changing a lot, so my strong recommendation would be to try to attend classes in her area of interest and make her own judgments.

I don’t at all mean this to be a slam on Northeastern. I loved a lot of things about the school, particularly coop. However, with your daughter’s interests, is she planning on a Ph.d? I feel like coop is the most useful to people planning on immediate post-graduate employment; although I was a journalism major who was never considering a further degree right out of school. Others may certainly have a stronger differing opinion.

I think Northeastern is a great school, and I’m really glad that I went there, but some things in your post did kind of strike a chord with specific issues that I had.