The Power of Experiential Learning

Real world experience. Real life impact.

Experiential learning is a cornerstone of the Northeastern student journey. At the College of Professional Studies, students engage in a variety of opportunities to gain meaningful hands-on experience working with businesses and organizations with real world challenges that need solving. At the same time, businesses and non-profit organizations gain access to fresh ideas with a structured, faculty-led team.

Whether through co-op, the Experiential Network (XN), or a variety of capstone and other experiential learning programs, rigorous academics at CPS are augmented by real world experience that builds strong work portfolios and seeds the growth of a meaningful network.

At graduation, students receive more than a degree. They leave CPS with tangible high-demand experience. And the businesses and other organizations that take part in the experiential learning programs that afford them that experience keep coming back because of the value they receive.

Student Success

When Lauren Li began thinking about going back to school to get her master’s degree she was at a crossroads in her career. A graduate from John Day Obrien School of Mathematics and Science in the Boston Public School system, she grew up in an environment that didn’t always place high value in the arts. Art and music programs were continually being cut, and while she excelled in chemistry and other STEM classes, she yearned for a creative outlet that had been lacking. That yearning led her to a bachelor’s degree in Theatre.

“After graduation, I was unclear about where I wanted to focus my career, I started trying different things, but nothing felt right. It took me a while to decide to go back to school to get my master’s degree.”

Lauren Li

She began looking into UX design, a mix of both her creative yearning and her STEM strengths and found CPS’s graduate program in Digital Media. Starting during the pandemic in the fall of 2020, Li left her job and focused all her energy on this new journey. It was during that time, that she was introduced to different internship and co-op opportunities. Ultimately, she landed a capstone project working on a website design with Green Our Planet, a Las Vegas-based non-profit that trains teachers to use school gardens and hydroponic laboratories to teach students STEM, conservation, nutrition and entrepreneurship in a hands-on engaging way. to

“Before I met Ciara Byrne, the owner, I was intimidated,” she said. “You never know what business owners are going to be like, but she made it easy to dive into the project.”

– Lauren Li

Over the course of her time with Green Our Planet, Li was able to work directly with the staff on marketing and user research. Because their program is catered toward teachers, Li took the initiative to reach out to her own network of teacher friends to better understand how to serve that population and took that combined insight back to the design project where the team adapted many of the recommendations she delivered to develop a new website.

Li graduated with her master’s in digital media and a concentration in interactive design in 2022 and now is leading a successful career as a UX designer at Aspen Tech, a global asset management software leader that helps businesses advance their industrial digital transformation.

When asked what she gained most in her capstone experience at Green Our Planet she said,

“When it comes to UX in general, empathy is so important for a designer to understand the users you are serving. I bring that to every project I work on now.”

– Lauren Li

She went on to explain that “going to Northeastern was life changing for me. I was almost 30 when I went back so it felt very different from my undergraduate experience being an older student, but in a good way. It’s never too late.”

The Business Impact

As students pursue their dreams, gaining real world experience, businesses tap into the experiential learning program for two main reasons: one, they like the idea of helping students; and two, they often gain far more from the creative, fresh thinking that comes from new student perspectives.

Rahi Tajzadeh, CEO of The Big Leaf, a Canadian consultancy firm, started working with students at different universities four years ago because “we realized we needed access to student brains.”

Since then, Tajzadeh and his team have worked with more than 2,200 students at 94 schools.

“The two students we worked with at Northeastern over the six weeks we had them were some of the best we’ve ever had,” he added. “They did more and at a higher quality than any student in their category of front-end development. More even that students we’ve had over two semesters. I was blown away.”

Rahi Tajzadeh CEO of The Big Leaf

Because he’s worked with so many students at different universities, Tajzadeh has learned a thing or two about how businesses can best position their experiential learning programs to be successful.

“It’s important to find projects that are not mission critical and have lots of room for creativity. You can always change something, but if it’s too restrictive you’ll never know what it could have been.”

– Rahi Tajzadeh

At the same time, Tajzadeh says businesses should still recognize they are working with students who are still learning so need to set expectations accordingly and give students the freedom to fail.

“It’s better for them to learn from businesses in this setting than when they get their first job after graduation and have never had the experience of professional critical feedback, it’s a great way to learn and it’s also a great way for us to get exciting ideas that we may have never thought about on our own.”

– Rahi Tajzadeh

Intangible Benefits

In addition to the practical benefits experiential learning brings students to put their academic studies to the test in the real world and develop meaningful resume-building experience and for businesses to cultivate fresh ideas, there are some less obvious but equally important benefits to experiential learning.

Minhyung (James) Jung and Suqi (Eileen) Wu worked together on a project with Althea Health, a start-up aimed at deploying AI technology in the health care space to help boost efficiency and enhance patient access and outcomes.

Jung describes himself as a marketer and musician who has a diverse background in international studies, economics, science, business, marketing, branding, music, and sports. He decided to pursue the Digital Media Management program because it allowed him to tap into that diverse experience.

“At the beginning of my studies, I didn’t know that we would have a choice between a thesis or a capstone project at the end. I ended up picking the capstone project just because it was something different. I didn’t realize how much I would love it. Looking back, I’m so appreciative of the opportunity.”

Minhyung (James) Jung

For Jung, working with an actual business was completely new for him. Though he has a lot of academic and lived experiences, his professional work experience was limited and to participate in the process of completing a project for a business from start to finish, working as a team under the leadership of their professor, Alexandra (Alex) Candelas, accelerated his learning.

“My most crucial take away was actually what I learned about communication, it was quite a new thing for me, to communicate in the real business. This experience gave me that.”

– Minhyung (James) Jung

Wu, his counterpart on the team working with Althea Health, came to Northeastern because of its focus on experiential learning.

“I wanted a real-life experience because the best way to learn is to do, but I think the most valuable aspect was also having access to our professor to get direct and actionable feedback, to go deeper in our analysis and explore new ideas with more confidence than I may have done on my own.”

– Suqi (Eileen) Wu

According to Candelas, who in addition to teaching digital media at Northeastern is a tech executive who recently left corporate and is a co-founder at First Leap Labs a non-profit incubator for startups, the magic of experiential learning is when students find that confidence to trust in what they have learned.

“I love watching students grow in this program and when faced with real problems that businesses in the real world are depending upon them to help solve, they inevitably surprise themselves with just how capable they truly are.”

Prof. Alexandra Candelas

Jung and Wu not only surprised themselves with how much they got out of the project with Althea Health, but they also surprised the client as well.

Kamyar Firouzi, co-founder of Althea Health, admits that he was not excited about inviting students into their development process at first. A graduate of Stanford, his business partner is a Northeastern alum who connected them to CPS’s experiential learning program through partners at the Roux Institute.

“I was skeptical at first but ultimately was really impressed by what we got out of this experience, the work they did saved us a ton of time, which is at a premium as we prepare to raise our seed round of funding.”

– Kamyar Firouzi

As a SaaS software startup trying to integrate AI into the health care space, the potential for Althea Health is more than just business for Firouzi.

“I’ve been through some treatments that are complex and have wanted more clarity across the journey. Too many healthcare systems can’t coordinate care, so you have to go to too many places. Imagine a world where everyone has access to skilled nurses, navigators, and caretakers to help them through their treatment?”

Kamyar Firouzi Co-Founder of Althea Health

When asked if he would do another project like this with students again, given his hesitation at first, Firouzi enthusiastically said “absolutely.”

“Even though I wasn’t so big on it at first, now I want to go back. Big kudos to the instructors who bring energy and passion and are able to facilitate and engage students while giving them direction. Honestly, we need to get the word out to help others know about this program so it can be a role model for other institutions that are trying to train students for the future. You look at “big name schools,” like Harvard and even my alma mater, Stanford, and they just don’t offer this level of mutually beneficial experiential learning like what we had at Northeastern. Most of the work is academic, but no one really cares about that in the real world.”

– Kamyar Firouzi

Getting Connected

The success of the experiential program at Northeastern is centered on the relationships of the faculty, many of whom, like Candelas, are still active leaders in their industries. Those partnerships and networks expand across the globe, but that’s not to say businesses must already have a relationship with Northeastern to get involved. Those interested in learning more should contact Yvonne Rogers, Assistant Dean, Center of Co-op & Professional Advancement, College of Professional Studies.

“Our students are incredibly diverse, coming from all parts of the world, all seasons of their careers, and all kinds of lived experiences, their education at CPS is enriched when we can deepen the diversity of the kinds of businesses and organizations that partner with us in this experiential learning work, just as the businesses gain value from the diversity of thinking that our students bring to the table.”

– Prof. Alexandra Candelas