In the wake of Northeastern’s expansion to Oakland, Yasmeen Dao finds new opportunities
Author: Sarah Olender
Date: 01.16.24
When Northeastern University merged with Mills College in Oakland, California in 2022, there were a lot of mixed emotions from Mills students like Yasmeen Dao. While it was bittersweet to say goodbye to the Mills community as it was, Dao saw the merger as a unique opportunity to explore all that Khoury College has to offer.
“At first, I had never experienced anything like a merger before, so I didn’t know what to expect or how to react. But I always wanted to go to school on the East Coast and explore there,” Dao said. “I saw that Northeastern had great opportunities [for] growing professionally and personally … so I wanted to go and see what Northeastern had to offer.”
So after commuting to Mills from her nearby hometown of Orinda for two years, Dao chose to embrace change. She came to Boston in the fall of 2022 and has been based there ever since.
Dao’s journey didn’t stop, or even falter, with a change of campus. Upon coming to Boston, she joined Northeastern’s women’s club soccer team, which was a natural transition from her previous role as a Division III player at Mills. Dao played on a developmental academy competitive soccer team growing up, and knew she wanted to continue playing at a competitive level in college.
Dao had also entered Mills College intent on studying computer science. But early on in her academic career, Professor Susan Wang gave a talk to one of Dao’s computer science classes, and it opened Dao’s eyes to the world of data science. Enamored with the field’s many interdisciplinary applications, Dao decided to pursue a career in data science, diving into its intersections with climate change, poverty, health care disparities, and other societal challenges.
While Boston was a major shift from Mills’ Oakland campus, Dao has embraced the differences, welcomed the change in scenery, and enjoyed her time on the East Coast.
“It’s so different being in a big city compared to Mills, which is in a smaller, more tranquil setting with intimate class sizes, but I’ve met so many people and so it’s been really nice,” Dao said.
One of the things that Dao enjoys most about the Boston campus is being on a large campus in the middle of a large city, and the opportunities that result. For instance, she recently completed a software engineering co-op with Manhattan-based Parametric, an asset management division of Morgan Stanley. While in New York, she was part of Parametric’s fixed income investment team, where she configured authorization security to help process requests necessary for portfolio construction; she also helped to develop an application that delivers offers and aggregates deals on municipal bonds.
Dao arrived in New York aiming to further explore the East Coast and to take advantage of the opportunities Northeastern had to offer. While there, she also made friends with the other co-ops.
“It’s so different from what I’ve kind of been doing in classes because my classes are more data science related,” Dao said about her co-op. “On co-op, I’ve learned so much about computer science and the finance world as well.”
Between her transition to Boston, finding her place on campus and on the soccer team, and exploring new locations and internships, Dao has experienced plenty of personal and professional growth.
“I felt discomfort in the transition at first and I was really scared because I didn’t know what to expect. But it proved to be really important to forge adaptability and challenge myself to do those tough things,” Dao said. “It led me to New York, and if I hadn’t gone to Boston to begin with, I don’t think I would have been there. Even outside of academics, I’ve learned so much about myself and life in general, which is so important and a testament to gaining confidence and pushing myself out of my comfort zone.”