While studying at Northeastern, 2015 grad James Klein seized upon the opportunities offered by co-op to push his boundaries by accepting offers across the country in Palo Alto, and across the Atlantic Ocean, in Paris.

“We went to 10 different countries while I was there, and being paid to do that was amazing,” Klein says of his time in Paris – and around Europe – where he worked as a full-stack developer at a startup, Copass from February – July 2014. “The work, the hours, the culture and the life over there were so unstructured compared to American culture. I also learned a ton about an entirely different side of the computer science industry – all the open source software, how to rapidly prototype things. It was a whole different world.”

Immersing himself in new experiences is par for the course for Klein, who, during his four years at Northeastern, was a member of breakdancing and ballroom dancing groups on campus, before going on to help found the Northeastern chapter of Zeta Beta Tau, a social fraternity. He was also an active member of Northeastern’s Association of Computer Machinery, the largest global scientific and educational computing society. Right now, when he’s not working at Happie, a Cambridge-area startup that connects jobseekers with employers through curated, short video interviews, Klein is taking cooking classes, salsa lessons, and brushing up on his Spanish.

Klein transferred to Northeastern in 2011 to pursue a bachelor’s degree in information science with a minor in business after earning an associate degree in software engineering and computer information systems from Alfred State College of Technology.

“I wanted a prestigious and stimulating environment,” Klein says of his decision to move to Northeastern.

He says that his co-op experiences prepared him for life after college. Klein’s first co-op was at Hercules Technology Growth Capital, a venture capital firm, where he worked as a software developer from January – June 2013. The six months he spent there helped contextualize everything Klein had learned in class: “I feel like it put a lot of pieces together,” he says. “I had all this theory and all these things we learn in the classroom, and it really showed me an environment where those things could work together, which I think is very hard to emulate in a classroom.”

By the time he was applying for a second co-op, Klein knew he wanted to take full advantage of the opportunity to go abroad while at Northeastern, whether through a study abroad program or an international co-op. Though he notes that international co-ops are tough to land in computer science fields, Klein accepted an offer from Copass, a startup that manages a global network of coworking spaces, where he made up one-fifth of a tightly-knit office, and worked as a full-stack developer, creating new features and frameworks for the web application and ensuring that users had a smooth experience.

When he graduated in August this year, Klein’s job prospects were great: before even actively applying for positions, Klein was contacted by 20 companies through LinkedIn and Indeed.com, where he had posted his résumé. He settled on a position at Happie, where he says he’s already surprised his boss by how quickly he’s adapted to his new workplace.

“I’m already used to the structure of going into work and being part of the team from day one,” Klein says. “This job, so far, they’ve thrown me in headfirst more than I was before, and didn’t hold my hand as much. My boss said after the first couple of weeks that I was catching a lot that he didn’t expect anyone straight out of school to understand or even know about.”