About Sessions

One-Time Sessions

You may sign up for a one-time session to work with a Writing Associate on an as-needed basis. Your professor may also ask you to sign up for a session in the course of working on a project or to address a specific set of issues. If there are no sessions available, we suggest signing up for the daily wait list, using the button at the bottom right corner of each day. Once on the list, you’ll be notified if a session becomes available.

Ongoing Sessions

You may also sign up for ongoing sessions. A student enrolled in ongoing sessions meets with the same Associate at the same time every week. This allows the Writing Associate to take a long-term view of your development as a reader, writer, speaker, and thinker. Approximately 15-20 percent of Cooper’s student body chooses to meet with us in ongoing sessions each week.

Sign-ups for ongoing sessions always begin at 10am on the first day of classes and are assigned on a first-come, first-served basis. Ongoing sessions reset every semester.

How Sessions Work

  • All sessions at the Center are 45 minutes in length and are virtual or in-person as noted in the scheduler. Virtual sessions are held on Teams by default, and your Writing Associate will initiate the meeting. Alumni should contact the Center to request a Zoom link.
  • Be sure to have access to all of the materials related to the project you’re working on, including textbooks, drafts, notes, prompts and so forth. Otherwise, you don’t need to prepare or know exactly what you want to work on—it’s fine to just say “help!”
  • At the end of each session, you’ll receive a brief report summarizing what you worked on. We can send a copy of that report to your professor, but that’s up to you.
  • We never evaluate you or speak to your professor without your knowledge about how your sessions are going. We see you as a junior colleague and see ourselves as your allies.

Attendance and Cancelation Policies

  • You can cancel an appointment via the scheduler at least 24 hours in advance. Within 24 hours, you’ll have to contact us to cancel. We strongly encourage you to plan ahead—late cancellations are more likely to result in unused sessions. Students who fail to show up for scheduled appointments may be prevented from using the Center in the future.
  • Ongoing students who fail to cancel in advance, or who cancel repeatedly, risk losing their regular sessions.

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.