Gain real-world physical therapy experience.
Doctor of Physical Therapy
Northeastern’s Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) is a rigorous, comprehensive post-baccalaureate program for professionals seeking an experience-focused approach to education. Through lectures, cadaveric anatomy labs, service learning, and clinical education, you’ll receive an education that immediately puts your studies into practice.
In the DPT program, you’ll gain real-world skills in addition to significant research and work experience. You’ll also be able to take advantage of our Boston campus’ proximity to professional sports team facilities, award-winning hospitals, and other unique settings to practice what you’ve learned.
You can also customize your degree with a concentration in sports performance or pediatric physical therapy, both of which offer additional opportunities to work directly with patients in various settings outside the classroom.
Learn more about the Doctor of Physical Therapy program.
—Jada Meadows, Doctor of Physical Therapy Student
Entry Terms
Course Delivery
Real-world experience through co-ops
Our Boston-based DPT program is the only one in the U.S. with a co-op component. Through co-ops, students take on a paid, six-month work opportunity in a physical therapy setting, gaining valuable skills and working on-ground for three times longer than other programs. Northeastern also offers multiple global learning opportunities, including service-learning trips to Ecuador and exchange trips to Switzerland.
Built-in research opportunities
DPT students participate in research with faculty mentors and can present their work at Northeastern’s annual Research and Innovation Exposition. Many students also showcase their research in scientific publications and professional conferences. State-of-the-art, faculty led labs—including the Human Movement Research Lab, Musculoskeletal Epidemiology and Biomechanics Laboratory, and Rehabilitation Games & Extended Reality (ReGame-XR) Laboratory—provide innovative research opportunities right on campus.
About Northeastern
Founded in 1898, Northeastern is a global research university and the recognized leader in experiential lifelong learning. Our approach of integrating real-world experience with education, research, and innovation empowers our students, faculty, alumni, and partners to create worldwide impact.
Our global university system provides our community and academic, government, and industry partners with unique opportunities to think locally and act globally. The system—which includes 13 campuses across the U.S., U.K., and Canada, 320,000-plus alumni, and more than 3,800 partners worldwide—serves as a platform for scaling ideas, talent, and solutions.
Northeastern’s personalized, experiential undergraduate and graduate programs lead to degrees through the doctorate in 10 colleges and schools across our campuses. Learning emphasizes the intersection of data, technology, and human literacies, uniquely preparing graduates for careers of the future and lives of fulfillment and accomplishment.
Our research enterprise, with an R1 Carnegie classification, is solutions oriented and spans the world. Our faculty scholars and students work in teams that cross not just disciplines, but also sectors—aligned around solving today’s highly interconnected global challenges and focused on transformative impact for humankind.