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What is Experience?

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That’s our motto, our credo, our exhortation. Experience is a digital magazine that examines the power of experience to spark ideas, solve problems, transform industries, and drive personal growth. Our stories will invite readers to understand the experiences of others, challenge assumptions, and break through the bubbles that too often persist in culture and civic life. They’ll promote a spirit of doing, growing, taking leaps, embracing the new. Experience is published by Northeastern University.

Have an idea for an Experience story? Check out our submission guidelines.

About Northeastern

For more than a century, Northeastern University has placed experience at the heart of its mission, in teaching, research, and global engagement. That’s because experience is the push that gives learning and discovery connection, insight, and impact. Experience is how people learn over their lifetimes, staying nimble and relevant. Experience is education. Learn more about Northeastern.

Staff

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Joanna Weiss @JoannaWeiss

DESIGN DIRECTOR
Michael Workman @MichaelWorkman

SENIOR EDITOR
Schuyler Velasco @Schuyler_V

EDITOR, PARTNERSHIPS AND ENGAGEMENT
Ceci Menchetti @CeciMenchetti

© 2019 Northeastern University
Tech + Life

Speedgate, the sport invented by artificial intelligence

A design team’s collaboration with an advanced neural network produces a surprise success story.

By Glenn McDonald

She went from fire-eating to running the ring

By Alix Strauss

The Experience Questionnaire: Marc Cohn

A tattoo artist writes stories on the skin

By Rachel Rummel

The Experience Questionnaire: James McMurtry

The Experience Questionnaire: Arlo Guthrie

The Experience Questionnaire: The Allman Betts Band
Ideas

The truth behind those glorious #VanLife images

The wanderlust was real. So was the lack of a bathroom.

When your real-life friend is your Facebook troll

Why your app doesn’t care who you are

Stories in I Tried It

I Tried It: Food cooked by robots

By Heather Kapplow

I Tried It: Ghost hunting

By Alison Stevenson

I Tried It: Group piano class

By Evan Judd

I Tried It: Sensory deprivation tank

By Allen Strickland Williams

I Tried It: Self-defense class

By Erin Kennedy

I Tried It: Swimming with whale sharks

By Amy Sutherland

Career Day

She went from fire-eating to running the ring

Big Apple Circus ringmaster Stephanie Monseu on whip-cracking practice, animal accidents, and the act that leaves her breathless

By Alix Strauss

Stories in Ideas

Hiking into the wildfire

By Jenni Gritters

High in the air, with an eye on sharks

By Amy Sutherland

Stories in Career Day

Twenty-eight days under the sea

By Jenni Gritters

He puts crime under the microscope

By Amy Sutherland

Backstage at ‘The Lion King,’ he handles beads, harnesses, and sweat

By Margaret Eby

All the beauty products he could ever want

By Alix Strauss

Finding the cheese that speaks to you

By Julia Beck

She’ll sell you Springsteen’s guitar or dancing with Madonna

By Alix Strauss

I Tried It

I Tried It: Food cooked by robots

Three minutes to prepare a delicious, healthy meal: there’s a robot for that. So what’s missing?

By Heather Kapplow

Ideas

Jealous of your Facebook friends? You’re not alone.

A new Experience survey reveals how much online envy is hurting our psyches — and fraying our real-life relationships

By Alexandra Samuel

I Tried It: ‘Tinder for friendship’

By Margaret Eby

Your guide to becoming an Instagram star

By Jenni Gritters

Ideas

What would you do? Take an immigrant’s journey.

Here are eight immigrant stories, told through composite characters but based on real laws and historically documented scenarios. Follow their paths, and see how you would respond to the choices they faced.