With the prestigious cachet of those names out of the question, I had to decide between schools that, despite lacking the same kind of immediate name recognition, all had excellent programs. He eventually made it to California Polytechnic and Northeastern. I traveled all the way to California and loved every second of it. However, what I realized is that California is very far away. The return home should be occasional, at most twice a year. The Northeast, on the other hand, is several hours away from my hometown of Bangor, Maine. Besides distance, Northeastern's other major strength was its co-op program. Just before I had to make a decision about which school I would attend, my brother got a co-op in Geneva at CERN, with the added bonus of a generous travel stipend. The opportunity that co-ops represented - being able to travel and learn about other cultures while gaining work experience - seemed too valuable to pass up, and so I chose