C is for coffee, college, Colette

Senior. Mathematics and Biology combined major, Pre-med track. Enthusiast of running, coffee, flannel, hammocking, and being outside. Send me your questions here (under "Menu," there is an ask me anything button). Happy reading!!

[northeastern-colettebiro]

Biked to Rockport and back, grateful for the smell of salt water! Over 90 miles on the bike today ✔️ (at Rockport, Massachusetts)

[northeastern-colettebiro]

Spotlight Series: Joe G.

Hey there! My name is Joe and I’m a 5th year senior studying Mechanical Engineering at Northeastern. For me, my co-op experiences are some of the most defining features of my time as a Northeastern Student (outside of being a Husky Ambassador, of course!). I did three co-ops, each at different companies, and each was in a very different sector. While I knew from the time that I applied to Northeastern that I wanted to study mechanical engineering, I had no idea what I might want to do with my degree. ME is a very broad field and there are opportunities in many different areas, and co-op has helped me to define my career path throughout my college experience.

My first co-op position was as a Disposables Engineering Co-op at NxStage Medical, the first company to make it possible for hemodialysis patients to complete their treatments at home, rather than needing to visit a dialysis center several times per week. I was responsible for testing and evaluating the disposable parts of the system, such as needles and blood circuits, making it possible for patients to use this groundbreaking technology. I changed things up for my second co-op, working at a military and aerospace company called Amphenol PCD. I was an Engineering Co-op, and the most rewarding part of working on a small team within the company was that I was able to do all of the same tasks as the senior engineers, working directly with our customers to specify and design cable assemblies for a wide variety of applications. My third co-op was as an Engineering Co-op at a company called Coravin, which produces a device that allows the user to pour a glass of wine without removing the cork from the bottle! Working at a quickly growing startup, I helped with a wide variety of tasks throughout the company, helping to prepare for the launch of the Coravin Model One, a new, lower cost version of the company’s product.

Aside from co-op, being able to get involved as a student volunteer really helped my shape my Northeastern experience. During the summer after my second year, I was given the opportunity to travel with a group of students from the College of Engineering to Panama, working with an organization called Sustainable Harvest International to promote sustainable farming practices among farming families in Central America. Throughout the week in Panama, we worked to help build a water storage tank at the village school, construct aggregate water filters and fuel-efficient cooking stoves and families’ homes, and plant trees on a mountainside. At the end of the week, we were given the opportunity to meet up with a NU student on co-op with the Panama Canal Authority, receiving a tour of the Canal expansion, the world’s largest construction site! The following summer, I was given the honor to be the student leader for the trip, allowing me to share my previous experience with other students. That year, we traveled with SHI to Belize, constructing water tanks, earthworm-enhanced composting bins, and chicken coops, along with helping a 17 year old farmer to plant 200 coconut trees!

Through the co-op and volunteer opportunities I have been able to participate in thanks to NU, I am now ready to determine what I want to do with my career. I’m currently in the process of looking for a full-time job in either the aerospace or renewable energy fields, and I’m hoping that my job will bring me to a new adventure in either Seattle, WA, Portland, OR, or Denver, CO. I’m very grateful to Northeastern for the chance to experience three different co-ops, work with people half way across the globe, and share my experience with future Huskies as a Husky Ambassador.

[northeastern-colettebiro]

10 days until I ship out of Boston to Jacksonville to begin my adventure with Bike & Build. Support my journey via the link in my bio - all is appreciated to reach my goal of $4,800 for affordable housing (at Commonwealth Avenue Mall)

[northeastern-colettebiro]

Golden hour on the Charles, prepping for a cross country bike tour to support affordable housing. Support me and affordable housing via the link in the bio! (at Boston University Sailing Pavilion)

[northeastern-colettebiro]

Do you have any advice for incoming freshmen? It could be NEU specific or general college advice..

Hi Anon!

Great question, thanks for asking. For general college advice, keep your door to you res hall room OPEN! People will inherently stop and see who’s there (you) and it’s by far a great way to make friends, meet your neighbors, and spark conversation. My roommate freshman year and I did this and our floor also. We were all so close by the end of it, a tight-knit 20 person family. Moving away from home to college can be a scary experience, but remember, you’re not the only one feeling that. Most people are. Talk to them! Create your network, make new friends, and be excited for what’s to come! They’ll be your support network (see below) and your family away from your home family.

[northeastern-colettebiro]

May 1st...

Heya folks! I hope that you have all been enjoying the spotlight series, my way of getting some new and fresh perspectives on my blog. A gentle reminder that May 1st is coming up, aka deposit deadline! For all who have been admitted to Northeastern, CONGRATS! *throws confetti*

For all who have commiteed to Northeastern, we’re so excited to have you!

For those who are still in the decision making process, I wish you the best of luck in your decisions. I was down to the wire (literally paid on April 30th), so I understand how you feel. Find the best fit for you - that’s what matters. Personally, I hope it’s Northeastern because I found my home here in Boston at Northeastern!

[northeastern-colettebiro]

Spotlight Series: Matt Dunn

Matt, our Jack of all Trades:

Hey folks! My name is Matthew Dunn and I’m a fourth year Computer Science major with a concentration in cyber operations. It’s a mouthful, but it basically means I’m interested in cybersecurity. I’m originally from Kings Park, NY, a suburb on Long Island but since coming to Northeastern I’ve really fell in love with Boston. I’m also the biggest Houston Astros fan this side of the Mississippi.

Coming into Northeastern’s College of Computer and Information Science (CCIS), I really didn’t know whether computer science would be right for me. I had taken a class in high school, and was interested in both computer science and criminal justice, which led me down the cybersecurity route(although CCIS now offers a Computer Science and Criminal Justice combined major). While CCIS helped me find out some of my passions, I would be lying if I told you I knew what I wanted to do after I graduate next December. However, thanks to Northeastern and CCIS, I’ve been able to try my hand at a wide variety of experiences.

Everything really started with my first co-op as a software engineer with SparkFund, down in Washington, DC. I had the opportunity to contribute to the company’s fund management engine, while also building out a library to manage Google Drive and Spreadsheets using Clojure. Besides allowing me to contribute to these projects, I got the chance to experience growth at a small startup, and of course explore the District.

When looking for a second co-op, I decided I wanted to do something more security oriented. This led me to Barkly, where I worked as a malware researcher full time for 6 months, and then part time as a malware research engineer for the 8 months following. I was able to analyze prevalent malware such as Virlock, Cerber, and Locky while also helping the team in develop our product to protect against such prevalent malware.

As I conclude my year+ long adventure helping Barkly fight malware, I realized I had loved the research aspects of my time there most. This summer, and leading into the fall I’ll be doing research with Christo Wilson, starting with taking a look at threat intelligence data. I want to find out if research is what I want to do, and thanks to CCIS I can find that out before I graduate.

Besides work experience, I’ve also gotten the opportunity to try different things through extra curricular activities. Since I was a freshman, I’ve been involved with Husky Ambassadors, but recently took on a larger role as the Operations Chair. Being able to use my background in CS differently was a nice change, and I took that opportunity to automate roster management tasks as well as launch our frontward facing site. On the other hand, I also get the pleasure of working with first year computer science students as they transition to Northeastern both as a P2P mentor and then as a teaching assistant and mentor for our Overview 1 class (think Intro to College, CCIS remix). I’ve been able to assist students adjust to campus life, classes, career thoughts, and with their co-op searches.

When I was deciding on college four years ago, I thought I would have figured out what I wanted to do by now. I still don’t know, but because of my experiences at Northeastern, whether it be mentoring, web development, software engineering, or security research, I feel confident knowing I can handle any of those paths.

If you have any questions, feel free to email at [email protected] ! I like to believe I answer quickly.

[northeastern-victoirecointy-dea]

More pictures from our HA Gala just came out, and so I can now reveal the blogger group photos we took that night! Both pictures are missing a couple of people from our blogging team, but we made up for low quantity of bloggers with high quality poses.

It’s been an incredible year for me as a blogger, and I’m so glad I got to do it alongside this team of people, who’ve been supportive, kind and have laughed — or pretended to laugh — at all of my jokes. 

Special shoutout to the people in this picture, who agreed to dab with their pinkies up: @northeastern-alexishester • @northeastern-deirdredunham • @northeastern-katiehudson • @northeastern-colettebiro • and our fellow blogger turned Communications Chair Justin whose blog sadly no longer exists

[northeastern-colettebiro]

Bikes bikes bikes! 20 miles along the river (at Charles River Esplanade)

[northeastern-colettebiro]

Missing Cali morning walks with @tatumrose and @amydushk (at Palace of Fine Arts)

[northeastern-colettebiro]

My watch is still on Pacific coast time and that's ok!! (at Seattle, Washington)

[northeastern-colettebiro]

NU Admissions...in Seattle

Hi all!

I hope that you’re enjoying the Spotlight Series, featuring different Northeastern students on my blog! I wanted to provide a variety of perspective, which is SO important to make sure you are all aware of the diversity at Northeastern, here in Boston. 

But I mentioned Seattle in my title? What? How?

In case you did not know, Northeastern has more than just one campus! Boston is our main campus, home to all of our undergraduate programs and a slew of graduate programs as well. Other campuses include: Seattle, WA, Charlotte, NC, Silicon Valley, CA, and Toronto, Canada. These campuses focus on graduate programs, giving Northeastern students a chance to be a part of the Northeastern family outside of Boston. It’s incredible to have such an expansive network across the USA, but also internationally with all of the international offerings. 

So yes, I was in Seattle, in case you couldn’t tell from my awesome Rainier photo. It doesn’t always rain and yesterday (Tuesday) was a beautifully clear day, so all of the mountain ranges were clear! The Cascades and Olympics were out, with clear views of Mount Baker and Mount Rainier. My heart couldn’t be more full. 

I then went up to the Amazon highrises for lunch with my friend Anne-Marie, who is a Northeastern alumni working at Amazon, one of her former co-ops. And a trip to Seattle isn’t complete without a trip to Pike Place Market. Springtime flowers were everywhere - so beautiful!!

I was with some admissions members from the Boston campus to help run an admitted students session in Seattle for students who may not be able to travel to Boston beforehand. So we bring Boston to Seattle, ironically enough, on Northeastern’s Seattle campus in South Lake Union. 

I, alongside a Northeastern alumni and three Northeastern co-ops in Seattle, got to share my Northeastern story (aka this blog, pretty much) with many admitted students. Definitely a rad perk of being a tour guide. It’s always so nice to see students so excited about the future, which is what Northeastern is really about. We are building a future together, here in Boston, Seattle, Toronto, everywhere on the globe. 

So remember this: when you come to Northeastern, yes you are in Boston. Love Boston. Love the city with your entire heart. But know that Northeastern is always there to support you, wherever your Northeastern journey takes you before, during, and after college. 

(cue sappiness since I’m graduating)

Huge THANKS to NU Admissions for this opportunity to go to Seattle, one of my favorite places to be. 

-C

[northeastern-deirdredunham]

Register...set....GO!

I’ve returned to a cruel reality, and that reality is I actually have to go back to classes in the fall. 

Actually, I’m excited to go back to classes. I think a perk of the coop program is that by the end of coop, you are ready for classes, and by the end of classes you are SO ready for coop.

Plus, guys, after working 8 hour days every day, who wouldn’t be ready for this schedule??

I’m basically a professional at registering for classes, so here’s a helpful FAQ for class registration season~

How does Registration at Northeastern University Work?

First semester freshmen: I know you are so excited to start picking your classes and having this magical concept called “guided flexibility”, but for your first semester, your schedule will be built for you. Unless you are going to use credits to get out of a class, you don’t have much of a say in what you’re taking and when you take it. However, you usually do have an elective to play around with. When you come in for orientation in the summer, you will meet with an academic adviser and like 10 other students and you guys will search through a massive book of classes and pick what looks ~fun~

Literally everyone else: A few weeks before registration, you will get an email from the university to let you know that your time ticket is posted online. A few weeks before that, the schedule of classes for the coming semester goes live, but there’s no email blast to tell you that. When you get the time ticket email, you can figure out what your ideal schedule would be. Myself and many Northeastern students like using https://neu.courseoff.com/workspace . Courseoff has a schedule of all our classes inputted and you can create an account and save different possible schedule configurations. It’s usually pretty accurate but sometimes wont tell you a room or prof. Oh well.

What if I can’t get a Class I Need/Want?

Need: Email your academic adviser ASAP. If you need a class, they will make sure you get in that class. Either they will expand the class size (this could mean changing the room but its usually no biggie), or if enough people have problems they might just make a whole new section. TBH one time there was a class I needed but it wasn’t free at the time I wanted, so I waited for them all to fill up and then emailed my academic adviser saying, “Oh noooo I need this…at 10:30am pls” and it was done. 

Want: If it’s a want and not really a need, you can either try to get into the class the next semester OR wait until right after “I am Here” registration ends. Many people forget this and will be dropped out of classes. That’s when you strike. You can also email your academic adviser to keep an eye on it for you, but I like picturing NEU students as vultures striking. 

Why does it say “Registration Status: Junior” when I’m Not a Junior?

Registration time tickets are done by your credits! So if you came in with 32 AP credits, you probably have sophomore standing after fall of your freshman year. And some people take summer classes which bumps up their registration times, everyone is just doing different things. A weird thing is that the older you get, the better time tickets you get, but the less competitive it is to get into your classes? That math definitely makes sense.

What do I do when my Time Ticket Activates?

REGISTER! People rush to do it, but honestly it’s not terribly time sensitive unless you really want a certain time for a class. Before your time ticket activates, write all your CRN numbers down on a word document, and then when your time ticket activates, copy and paste those suckers on the quick reg bottom portion of the registration window.

What if I Second Guess It?

Don’t worry, you can drop classes online up until somewhere in the first week of classes without any repercussions. Of course it’s better to do this sooner rather than later so you can fill that slot in your schedule (4 classes is a normal course load, by the way). but hey, we all make mistakes. And when in doubt, take Jazz class. 

———————————————————————

Best of luck with registration, and now that you all know when I have classes….come find me in the fall!

Have any questions about vulture students, college, or life in general? Message me on this blog or email me at

[email protected]

Until next time, stay pawsome!

-D

[northeastern-colettebiro]

Spotlight Series: Katherine

Hi everyone! 

My name is Katherine, I'm a 4th year student majoring in Communication Studies with two minors in History and Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies. My major is housed in the College of Arts, Media and Design and my two minors are in the College of Social Sciences and Humanities. I'm originally from just outside of Chicago but I love, love, love living in Boston and attending Northeastern. 

I came into Northeastern as an Undeclared student with no clue of what I was doing, so I promised myself I would take advantage of as many opportunities as possible to figure out what I wanted to study. I actually lived in the Undeclared LLC called Journeys my freshman year - all of my best friends to this day are people I lived with in that LLC. I decided on Communications after taking an Intro to Communication Studies course (and realized I was always excited to go to that class on Friday afternoons). The History minor came after reflecting on my favorite courses I took in high school, and the WGSS minor came after attending a social/reproductive justice conference called CLPP with a student group I was involved in at the end of my freshman year. 

Speaking of clubs.... I've been involved in my fair share of them. I honestly don't know a single person here who isn't involved in a club that they are passionate about. After trying out different ones that focused on things like writing, public relations, event planning, music, feminism and more, I finally committed to three that I love and serve on the E-Boards of. NU SHARE (Sexual Health, Advocacy, Resource and Education), which is a Planned Parenthood-sponsored group focusing on sex ed on campus; NU SARC (Sexual Assault Response Coalition), which is a group of students committed to making resources on campus more survivor-friendly; and of course, Husky Ambassadors, where I'm a tour guide along with Colette, and a Husky Development Mentor helping to train and evaluate other tour guides. I'm also an RA (Resident Assistant) and while it's a tough job, I really love working with my staff and residents. 

In my time here, I've also done: Service-learning - volunteering at 826 Boston to help Boston Public School students with their reading and creative writing skillsStudy abroad - spent an incredible semester in Florence, Italy where I literally ate gelato and pasta every single day and traveled to 14 countries in 5 months. 3 co-ops - my first one was in the Office of New Student Orientation and Parent Programs, doing event planning for Northeastern, including the giant Summer Orientation sessions for all incoming freshmen. My second co-op was at a public relations agency, Version 2.0 Communications, where I worked mostly with tech startups and marketing for the agency itself. And I'm currently on my third co-op doing Corporate Communications for Vertex Pharmaceuticals. I love my current job and it's made me realize that I want to continue working either in the biotech or public health field, making a difference in the quality of peoples' lives. I've tried to have vastly different experiences within the realm of Communications co-ops and have learned so much from all three, including how to be a functioning adult working a 9-5, which is a priceless lesson. 

I know this is a crazy exciting and scary time as you're finalizing your decision about what school you'll attend. If anything I said above peaked your interest, please feel free to email me at [email protected]. I would honestly be thrilled to answer your questions because I'm weird like that. Before googling "Boston schools" my junior year of high school, I had never heard of Northeastern, so it was really kind of a happy accident that I ended up here. I am so grateful I stumbled my way to Northeastern, which has turned out to be the perfect school for me. 

[northeastern-colettebiro]

That volcano view though >>> (at University of Washington)

[northeastern-colettebiro]

So thankful to have such a hardworking group of HDMs, our tour guide development mentors! As a training and development co-chair with Sarah (we’re the two in the front), it’s been incredible to guide you guys over the past year. Keep up the fabulous work for the rest of your time at Northeastern! I’ll miss you all dearly. 

[northeastern-colettebiro]

Spotlight Series: Shreya

Hi everyone! My name is Shreya and I’m a third year Math and Finance combined major from Ashland, MA. On campus, I do a few different things- I’m a member of the Leadership Council for Husky Ambassadors where I do recruitment and global connections, and I’m also member of one of our campuses sororities, Tri Sigma.

Since I’m a combined major, I’m both a part of the College of Science (COS), and the D’Amore McKim School of Business (DMSB). I love them both so much, and I’m so thankful for all the opportunities they have given me. As a member of two colleges, I have had access to the resources in both schools including (but not limited to) advisors, professors, and some pretty sweet study spaces. I also have access to a number of different subjects and potential career paths- something that I really value as arguably one of the most indecisive people alive.

For my first co-op, I worked at Natixis Global Asset Management, where I worked on the Institutional Sales team. There, I worked with the salespeople to help them identify different opportunities, researched consultant research, and much more. On my co-op, I had the chance to try my hand at some of the work that goes into sales. Not only that, but I had the chance to work with a number of different departments to expand my knowledge of the industry. I worked with members of the Portfolio Reconstruction Group, the data team, and I even got to partner with some of the affiliates to learn more about what they do.

My time at Natixis was great because of how much I got to learn about different parts of the industry. For my second co-op, however, I decided to shift focus and look for a smaller, more corporate-finance role. The second time around applying for co-ops was a lot easier than the first. Being able to pull on my experiences managing projects at Natixis, and being able to throw around some fancy finance jargon made me feel much more at ease during interviews. I just recently accepted my second co-op at a company called LevelUp! It’s a mobile payment platform that uses QR code technology to allow for mobile transactions. It’s a much smaller company, and my role is going to be really different from what I did at Natixis. It’s a challenge I’m really excited to tackle, and I can’t wait for July to role around so I can get started.

My time so far at Northeastern has been pretty good, if I do say so myself. I love the people, I love the city, and I love all the opportunities that this University has provided for me. Northeastern has pushed me out of my comfort zone so many times, and has taught me so much about my priorities, values, and how many interviews I can fit into a week without exploding (answer: 6). Northeastern’s unique experiential learning draws in students who are passionate, engaged, and willing to take risks and I’m so thankful that I get to go to a school that encourages growth as much as this one does.