Northeastern’s president and its chief enrollment officer reflect on their paths from international students to higher ed leaders at the 2025 International Association for College Admission Counseling conference.
Northeastern University President Joseph E. Aoun stood before more than a thousand admissions counselors Tuesday in Matthews Arena, drawing on his experience as an international student to welcome attendees to the 2025 International Association for College Admission Counseling conference.
Aoun, the keynote speaker for the opening ceremony, came to the United States as a young man to pursue his doctorate after growing up in Beirut, Lebanon, and studying in Paris.
“I barely spoke English. It was my third language,” Aoun told the crowd of high school and college counselors. “And you — meaning one of your predecessors — accepted me as a student here, and that changed my life.”
The annual conference draws admissions professionals from around the world, many of whom work closely with international students navigating complex educational journeys. For Aoun, those journeys are personal.
Many international students, like he once was, make significant sacrifices for a chance to pursue education in the U.S. They arrive with the hope that a degree will change their lives — and often, it does.
One of those students was Satyajit Dattagupta, Northeastern’s chief enrollment officer and executive vice chancellor, who also addressed the audience.
“You know this is a full-circle moment for me in many ways,” Dattagupta said. “I came to this country as an international student in the year 2000 and I’m truly living my dream.”
Now, he said, he mentors and supports the next generation of international students following similar paths.
Dattagupta shared the story of a young man he met in Mumbai while representing Northeastern at an educational expo. The student was interested in studying computer science and had traveled hours just to attend.
“He said, ‘I have taken two trains and a bus. I live 14 hours away. This is my first exposure to international education. I am so inspired by everything I see. Everyone tells me I can’t do this. That this isn’t going to happen, but I know that I will.’”
That kind of determination, Aoun said, is why institutions must ensure international students are equipped for the challenges and opportunities ahead — especially as artificial intelligence reshapes both higher education and the workforce.
“It is time for us in higher education to go back to our mission — that is a mission of education, but also for many universities and colleges, also a mission of discovery,” Aoun said. “We have to ask the question: what is the purpose of higher education in the AI age?”
That question drives much of Aoun’s work, including his book “Robot-Proof: Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.” In it, he introduces “humanics,” a curriculum built around three key literacies: technological literacy, data literacy and human literacy.
At Northeastern, the model is more than theory, Aoun said. He pointed to the university’s prevalence of combined majors, animated by its co-op program, as examples of how students gain experience that prepares them for careers and life.
Through co-ops, students apply what they learn in class to real-world settings, developing a deeper understanding of their disciplines. That kind of human insights and contextual agility, Aoun said, can’t be replicated by AI.
He also highlighted Northeastern’s more than 200 combined majors, where students might study computer science while also taking classes in business or philosophy.
“The demand is there,” Aoun said. “The students want to combine majors. It’s going beyond academic departments.”
Aoun included a message of encouragement to the counselors who work with international and domestic students alike: Stay focused on the life-changing power of education.
“When you talk to students as you do on a daily basis, and when you give them the opportunity to map the lifelong transformation that is education, you cannot afford to be pessimistic,” he said.