When Washington, D.C. native Kaylee Burkett was applying to college, she was immediately drawn to Northeastern for its renowned co-op program. Her excitement about the university’s London campus, coupled with the promise that she could still go on co-op outside of its flagship Boston location, led her to accept an offer at NU London.
“That’s what I was planning on,” Burkett, a second-year politics and international relations major, said of going on co-op. “And what I think I chose Northeastern for.”
What she found upon arrival at the London campus was “dodgy” information on co-ops from her academic advisors and rumors challenging their very existence from her peers. Although NU London’s website boasts the program, students say experiential learning opportunities on the U.K. campus are hard to come by.
“While co-ops at our London campus are a new offering, Northeastern students have been doing co-op for decades across our global network of campuses,” the Northeastern London website reads.
The university began marketing co-ops at Northeastern London in fall 2023, but the program was officially launched in spring 2025, said Elizabeth Zulick, Northeastern’s senior vice chancellor for education innovation. During the inaugural semester, Zulick told The Huntington News that “something like 40” NU London students were either on co-op or had an internship. According to its website, 2,281 total students attend the London campus.
“I don’t know if that’s inclusive of part-time co-ops,” Zulick said of the 40 students. The university did not respond to a follow-up question about whether part-time co-ops or internships are included in the number.
“The model is not a carbon copy of what we do in Boston, because students who are typically going for a U.K. degree have different expectations,” Zulick said. Students can attend the London campus for three years to earn a U.K. degree, then have the option to transfer to Boston to receive one in the U.S. Outside that, the London campus hosts Global Scholars.
A survey conducted by the London campus’ Student Union — similar to the Student Government Association in Boston — from Oct. 6 to Oct. 8 asked NU London students how much they knew about the campus’ co-op system.
A total of 56 students — 22 first-years, 14 second-years, 14 third-years and six graduate students — responded to the survey.
When asked whether they were aware of co-op opportunities, eight students responded, “No, I am a first year. I haven’t heard of this.” Fourteen said they have very little information on how to access the program, 16 said they had some idea of what it is and how to access it and 15 said they knew what it is and how to access it. Only three respondents said that they had accessed it.
The marketing of the London and Boston co-op programs are remarkably similar, and multiple students told The News they came to the London campus intending to go on co-op. In Boston, 95% of students participate in at least one four- to six-month full-time co-op while pursuing their Northeastern degree.
Petar Petrov, a 2025 Northeastern alumnus and former president of Northeastern London’s Student Union, noticed complaints from second-years about the London campus’ co-op program during his 2024-25 term as president. Petrov described the process to get a co-op as “very different” from how it was marketed.
“The marketing that has been put out by the university for the co-ops has pretty much marketed them as an identical thing to those in Boston — and they’re not,” Petrov said. “I think this sort of mish-mash between what the students were expecting and what they actually got was where the biggest disappointment came from.”
Northeastern London students who are not eligible to work in the U.S. are not allowed access to NUWorks, the exclusive platform Northeastern students use to apply for co-ops, Zulick said. Students who are eligible to work in the U.S. can talk to their career adviser about receiving access to the platform.
“U.K. citizens don’t have work rights in the United States, by default. The NU London career team can support students who have questions around visa support, as there are some case-by-case exceptions possible,” a Northeastern spokesperson told The News in an interview.
While Northeastern applicants in Boston seem to have access to a more robust co-op network, Northeastern London is still building its network with potential employers.
“We have teams that are just dedicated to the partnership development component explicitly and building out these opportunities,” Zulick said.
Instead of NUWorks, students at Northeastern London use Handshake, a global job posting website that anyone can access, and the way that Matilda Edwards, a third-year politics and data science major, applied for her internship. She said she’s one of the few students she knows who completed a six-month-long internship in London, the same length as a typical co-op. But, unlike students on the Boston campus, she said she was not allowed to stop taking classes.
Edwards said representatives at the Careers and Academic Advising Office told her that she could not take the semester off for the internship and had to make a plan with her boss to ensure she could work part-time while she took classes during the semester.
The News asked the university to explain why Edwards was told she was unable to take classes during her internship, but did not receive a direct response.
“Northeastern London students can take a break in studies as needed but would not have access to their usual government funding during that time,” a Northeastern media representative told The News. Government funding in the U.K. can include tuition fee loans, maintenance loans and grants or bursaries.
Edwards described the process of getting a co-op in London as “not organized.”
“[Northeastern London] kind of said that they wanted to do co-ops and didn’t really know how to do that,” Edwards said. She has had three academic advisors in the last two years and explained that the constant staff turnover made the flow of information “quite stunted.”
As far as university involvement in co-ops, Edwards was able to take co-op preparatory classes, which focus on resumes and other job application skills, and she signed a document stating that she was on a “Work Experience” after she accepted her internship. The document, obtained by The News, said the “Work Experience” could be a “co-op/internship/other.” Although the document did not describe the internship specifically as a co-op, the marketing and preparation courses did.
Mia Humphries, a third-year psychology student, took co-op preparatory classes in her second year, which she says were attended by around a hundred students each semester. While she believes the class helped her with interview and application skills necessary for applying to internships, she could not find a co-op related to psychology, and instead applied to work for her professors.
“I have to be honest, I think our discipline was a little bit disappointed with the availability of co-ops around our industry,” Humphries said, referring to psychology. “I like to have internships going at all times and I was really excited for it, but I really couldn’t find anything on [Handshake] that was tailored toward psychology or kind of an allied industry.”
She said offerings appear to have improved in the fall 2025 semester and the head of the psychology department posted a list of “seven or eight” internships that were directly connected to the field.
While Edwards did acquire an internship through Northeastern London’s co-op program, her sister, a student at the University of Bath, completed a “year in industry” to gain job experience.
The program, a traditional offering from U.K. universities, lets students work full-time in a position related to their field of study between their second and final year. NU London does not offer this option.
“I think that what Northeastern would really, really benefit from is actually embracing the fact that they have a U.K. university,” Edwards said. “The problem that they currently have right now is that they’re doing the American thing, and it is to the detriment of literally everyone.”
The university does run apprenticeship programs, which Zulick said are “kind of in alignment with how the apprenticeship program is delivered in the U.K. model.”
“We do have students who explicitly enroll in those programs,” she added.
Apprenticeships at Northeastern London are “designed for residents of the U.K. or Ireland who are looking to upskill or reskill in their careers, or for those who’ve recently finished secondary school,” Northeastern’s website reads. Apprenticeships are not a part of the bachelor’s degree path, and applicants can’t be enrolled full-time in order to qualify.
Northeastern London does offer another option for experiential learning: in-the-field classes, which take the place of an elective and meet once every two weeks. Students need to work a job for over 300 hours, either hybrid, in-person or remote, through the duration of the course. The company where the student works also serves as a “sponsor” and provides mentoring and a feedback report.
Seren Mills, a third-year computer science and philosophy combined major from Wales, works at the Northeastern London Student Union, where she holds the role of president. Initially, Mills worked as communities officer, a position she chose as her job for an in-the-field class, and earned £2,500, or around $3,300.
When Mills tried to look for internships in Boston over summer 2025, the career office told her they could not help with international internships.
As a student ambassador, Mills is also tasked with promoting the school to prospective and incoming students. She tells students that the university will walk them through every step of the co-op process and that there may be Northeastern-exclusive offers. But off-the-job, her advice to students is not to let co-ops be their deciding factor when choosing Northeastern London.
“I don’t want to say it’s not going to get any better, but it just currently isn’t where it should be,” Mills said.
