M e s s a g e  from President Freeland

As a significant part of Northeastern’s commitment to enhancing the quality of students’ academic and co-op experiences, the University changes to a semester calendar in fall 2003. If you enrolled at Northeastern before the semester conversion, your quarter hour credits will be converted to semester hour credits at a rate of 4:3. As long as you stay on track with your classes and co-op assignments and work with your academic and co-op advisers to develop a personal transition plan, you will graduate on time and at no additional cost save annual tuition increases.

The academic year consists of a 15-week fall semester, a 15-week spring semester, and two 7 1/2 week summer sessions. If you enrolled after the semester conversion, normally you will be in class for seven semesters in the fall and spring and during two summer sessions. You will also typically complete three 6-month co-op assignments during your five years at Northeastern.

The semester conversion benefits you in two significant ways:

1.) It improves your academic experiences. Because semesters are substantially longer than quarters, you have more time to absorb and understand the material covered in your courses, and your professors are able to cover course material in more detail.

2.) It enhances your cooperative education experiences. The semester system standardizes the length of each co-op to six months, rather than dividing them into three-month segments as happened under the quarter system. The longer co-op placements are intended to provide you with higher-quality work experiences and greater opportunities for increased professional responsibilities. Employers we have surveyed are firmly in favor of six-month co-op assignments over shorter work periods.

All of us at Northeastern are strongly committed to a smooth and student-centered transition. I encourage you to talk to your advisers about your course/co-op schedule if you have any questions.

The move to a semester calendar is an exciting opportunity for us to improve the Northeastern University experience. I look forward to moving through this transition with you.

Richard M. Freeland
President