In a recently published op-ed, the author claims that Northeastern is responsible for funneling students into the “Bermuda Triangle of talent,” specifically into careers of finance, consulting and law. 

He’s not wrong, but I disagree that it’s a problem. Rather, that’s what makes Northeastern so effective — and it’s why I chose to attend almost 15 years ago.

Unlike the author, I did not go to one of the best private high schools in the country; I went to a public high school in rural Maine. By an incredible stroke of luck, I earned a full-tuition scholarship to Northeastern, seizing the opportunity with both hands as a first-generation college student. Specifically, I saw the co-op program as an accelerator into the white-collar world that I never dreamed I’d be a part of.

While I agree that humanities courses may have made me more well-rounded, I purposefully maximized my time at Northeastern to earn a BS and MS in engineering and am also both a Gordon engineering leadership fellow and a Galante engineering business fellow, both of which added business skills to my engineering education. Northeastern was my express lane to my job as a lead data scientist at Boston Consulting Group. It has landed me a position, income and lifestyle my parents still don’t fully understand but that allows me to support them as they approach retirement.

To give the author credit, I did indeed have dreams of changing the world, and I still do. Sometimes, the work I do is one cog in a very large machine, and I struggle to see how my work improves the world. However, when I do move on from consulting someday, I will leave with an incredible toolset and a strong network I can leverage to achieve my goals. Without my time at Northeastern and the pipeline it sent me down, I would still have the same dreams, but with much less likelihood of making them a reality.

Adam Perruzzi is a 2017 Northeastern graduate with a BS in industrial engineering and an MS in engineering management. He can be reached at [email protected].