The number 100 has followed Cooper Rivard for his entire life. His high school had 100 students in each grade, and in his first-year at Northeastern, he set a goal to make 100 friends. So when he realized that there were 102 days left until his graduation, he knew that once the countdown reached 100, he would finally launch the project he had been thinking about for nearly a year. 

In Centennial Common, he set up a chair, a camera and a microphone and started asking students one question he believes nobody asks enough: “What’s your passion?”

“I wanted to create a platform that allowed students to express themselves,” Rivard, a fourth-year math and data science combined major, said. “I really love when somebody tells me that their passion is the little things, or their passion is being a good big sister. Just things that embody what it is to be a human and to share love with others.”

Rivard grew up in Encinitas, a suburb outside San Diego, Calif., where he attended Pacific Ridge School. During high school, he was involved in very few activities, which he decided to change at Northeastern. 

“In high school, I basically did nothing. I played volleyball and that was kind of it,” Rivard said. “But when I got to college, I kind of realized that’s not what I want to do anymore. I want to do everything. So I completely [did a] 180 and now I do everything.”

The shift was immediate. On his first day at Northeastern, during an orientation lunch at Curry Student Center, Rivard sat with a stranger he spotted across the room. 

“My dad’s like, ‘Do you want to sit with me?’ I was like, ‘No, I don’t. I want to go make some new friends,’” Rivard said. “So I turned around and I pointed at a person and said, ‘I’m going to go sit with that person.’ And that person was the first person I ever talked to at Northeastern, and he is still one of my closest friends to this day.”

This instinct to connect with people never left him. Four years later, with graduation looming, Rivard turned this impulse into something a lot bigger than himself.

“It started almost a year ago. I was just talking to friends and realized I really like talking about what their passions are,” Rivard said. “I happened to just look up how many days until graduation, and it was like 102 days left. I’m like, I got to start this at 100 days until graduation and do it all those 100 days.”

Naming the project was not a completely straightforward task.

“Originally, I had titled it ‘The Passion of Huskies,’ but I realized it sounds a little sexual. So we landed on ‘What’s Your Passion?’” Rivard said.

Rivard’s setup is simple: two adirondack chairs, a camera, a microphone and a colorful handmade sign that asks the titular question. The sign was designed with the help of his collaborator Jane Gullason, a fourth-year business and economics major who helps run the What’s Your Passion social media account. 

For around an hour and a half each day, Rivard sits on the edge of Centennial Common waiting for strangers to stop. 

When they started the project, Rivard and Gullason’s initial goal was to complete one interview a day, totaling 100 by graduation day. But over the past couple of months, the project has gained more traction than they anticipated. Already, they have uploaded 100 videos to the whatsyourpassion_neu Instagram account, which has 704 followers as of publication.  

“When I got my first interview, it was awesome, I was so excited. I was like, ‘If this is the only one I get today, I don’t care,’” Rivard said. “The most I’ve gotten in a day is seven. I never expected it to grow this much.”

Students now stop and wait in line to speak to Rivard and sometimes walk by whispering about him, not realizing that he can hear every single word. 

“I’ve had so many people walk by and I can hear everything they’re saying. They’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s the What’s Your Passion guy, I’ve seen him on Instagram,’” Rivard said. “I think it’s very funny because I don’t think they know that I can hear them.”

While Rivard and Gullason do some minor editing, including cuts between close ups and wide angle shots, the one thing Rivard refuses to remove is what people say.

“Originally, I wanted to edit down the videos so that each one was like 45-60 seconds, something short form. But I realized that’s not fair,” Rivard said. “If somebody comes up and tells me about everything they love, I shouldn’t be the one to say, ‘That wasn’t a good part of it,’ and cut it up. So I decided I’m keeping everything. Anything that they want to talk about will be in the video, and I’m so happy I did that.”

Throughout the project, Rivard has kept his own passion a secret but said he will reveal it on graduation day.

“The main reason why I don’t want to reveal my passion is that I wanted to keep it as a little surprise,” Rivard said. “I would say people can have multiple passions. So I guess my answer is I have two passions. One will be a secret, and the other is [running What’s Your Passion]. I really love talking to people.”

As Rivard’s time at Northeastern draws to a close, he has some advice for the incoming students who want to contribute to the Northeastern community.

“Go to the club fair and don’t leave until you’ve seen everything because you never know, you might find something you like,” Rivard said. “If you go around and you don’t see the exact thing that you wanted to do, start it. Every semester I try to join a new club or I try to find some new hobby.”

Balancing that level of involvement with academics is something Rivard had to navigate carefully throughout his four years.

“You should always prioritize your academics, but in terms of your extracurriculars, make a list, order it by what you would say is the most important that you keep doing. And if you have to drop something, you might be able to pick it back up another year. So don’t be too sad about it,” he said. 

For Rivard, What’s Your Passion was never just about building a following on social media or counting the number of interviews. It was about something much simpler.

“If you have the opportunity, talk to people about their passions,” Rivard said. “If you know somebody’s passion, then you’re more able to help them achieve that goal. So just talk to people about their passions. Find out what they love.”