Claude Builders Club
Slides from the September 17 info session laid out in a grid, with the title slide, Build what's next with Claude, at the center.

Newsletter #2: what you voted for, and the month in Claude

What is happening in the club, and the Claude news worth knowing.

Oct 1, 2026 · 4 min read

September recap

Thank you for an incredible start to the year. So many of you came out to our first info session, and the interest we've seen since has gone beyond anything we expected. Whether you joined us on September 17 or are just finding us now, you're the reason this club is already up and running.

The biggest takeaway from the info sessions is that this semester belongs to you. You picked the workshops, the hackathon theme, and what goes on the calendar. Below, we walk through what we covered that night, what you voted for, and what's coming up for the month of October.

The Claude Club Team

Info session recap

Info session, September 17

On September 17, we kicked off the semester with an overview of the club and everything we have planned.

  • Three board members at the front of the room, one speaking from the podium.
  • A board member talking in front of the projector screen.
  • Students in the audience looking up at the slides.
  • A board member presenting beside the screen, with the audience in the foreground.
  • Students listening from their seats by the window.
  • Students in the audience, one with a pen and an index card in hand.
  • Board members talking with students after the session.
  • Students and board members talking in small groups as the room empties.

Who we are. The Claude Builders Club is a student-led chapter of Anthropic's Claude Builder Club program, founded at Northeastern in Fall 2025, with members from every college on campus.

What members get. Claude API credits, Claude Pro, merch, workshop materials, and a direct line to the campus team.

How workshops run. We teach it, you build it, you show it off. Workshops run every other week and are labeled by level, so you can come to the ones that fit where you are.

Slide recap. Here are the slides from the info session. Use the arrows to click through them.

Title slide: Build what's next with Claude, an official Claude Builder Club chapter sponsored by Anthropic.

Slide 1 of 16: Title slide: Build what's next with Claude, an official Claude Builder Club chapter sponsored by Anthropic.

Then we opened the ballots and handed the semester over to you.

What you voted for

You voted on three things at the info session, and the results are in.

Workshop lineup. Student agents (schedule, job tracker, co-op search) came out on top, followed by Financial modeling with Claude and Building a business with Claude Code.

The workshops you pickedShare of you who put each one in your top three
Student agents: 54%
Financial modeling: 52%
Building a business: 45%
Your first app: 38%
Building tools: 30%
Guest speaker: 23%
Claude Code for your major: 22%
Claude for school: 20%
Portfolio websites: 10%
Marketing and content: 7%

Mini hackathon theme. Money Moves edged out Fix Northeastern, 27% to 25%, and it'll be the theme for our October 29 mini hackathon. Fix Northeastern is first in line for the next one.

Mini hackathon themeShare of the vote
Money MovesBudgeting, split-the-check, subscription audits: 27%
Fix NortheasternOne thing on campus that drives you insane, rebuilt: 25%
Beat the SpreadSports analytics, prediction, fantasy tools: 24%
Steal This SiteRebuild a site you use, cleaner or faster: 23%

Events calendar. Socials with our partner clubs, a demo night, and coworking sessions are officially on the calendar.

Would you come to these?
Socials with partner clubs: definitely 62%, might come 38%, not for me 0%
Demo night: definitely 51%, might come 38%, not for me 11%
Coworking sessions: definitely 43%, might come 54%, not for me 3%

This is how we plan to run the club all year. Polls open during sessions at /polls, and what you pick is what we build.

What's next

Workshop 1: Introduction to Claude, Code and Cowork, Thursday, October 15 at 6:00 PM. Bring a laptop. We'll cover what AI is, how it works, and the basics of working with Claude. Then you'll build a dashboard connected to Canvas and Google that manages your schedule and runs locally on your device, and share what you made at the end. No coding experience needed.

RSVP on Luma

Mini hackathon, October 29. Two hours, one theme: Money Moves. More details soon.

Save the date: November 7–8. Our hackathon with our partner clubs ACM, AINU, and REV.

Everything lives on our events page, with the room and an RSVP button for each session. Don't forget to check in at /attendance when you arrive to collect your stamp.

Claude news this month

Two new models

Claude Opus 5.5, announced September 22, is the first model in the new 5.5 family. It performs at the level of Fable 5.1 on most work, costs 40% less to run than Opus 5, and writes its answers about 30% faster.

Claude Sonnet 5.5 followed on September 28. It is the fastest Sonnet yet, keeps the same price as Sonnet 5, and is available on every plan, including Free.

Chat and Cowork are now one Claude

On September 16, chat and Cowork merged. Pro and Max users no longer pick a mode: Claude decides whether a task needs a quick answer or a longer job that keeps going after you close your laptop. It is rolling out over the next few weeks.

Docs, Slides and Design in any conversation

The same day, Claude Docs and Claude Slides launched, and Claude Design moved into conversations. You can build documents, decks, and designs right in the chat, edit them, and leave comments for Claude to act on. Available on every plan, including Free.

Claude found a new enzyme system

About 950 Claude agents searched a large DNA sequence database for 21 hours and turned up a previously unknown enzyme system in viruses that infect bacteria, with DNA repeats that resemble CRISPR. Anthropic's lab then confirmed it in experiments.

Also this month

  • Projects were redesigned to work like a conversation instead of a folder.
  • A new Claude Marketplace lists plugins, agents, and partner services, and a developer portal lets anyone submit a plugin to the Claude directory.
  • Anthropic published its latest report on detecting and countering misuse of Claude.
  • Claude for Government became generally available.
  • Claude Code: Opus 5.5 and Sonnet 5.5 are the new defaults, and claude --desktop opens the desktop app on your current folder.