Co-op Compensation?

How does the pay for co-op jobs compare to internships at other colleges?

It’s hard to say given that the data isn’t readily available for most if not all schools as it’s difficult data to gather and would likely need to be self-reported. The pay is typically more reflective of the industry than school. That said, 6 months vs 3 means earing double the money for the same salary.

Consider this: even if you were able to get the data of average internship pay for some college, that doesn’t include those that don’t find any position at all. What difference would the pay make if only 5 of 10 students got an internship?

The advantages of co-op are far more than pay - the amount of experience, the resources in the recruiting process, career services for your specific major, and the number of positions available are all important advantages. Co-op is about far more than pay - it’s an opportunity to have confidence in your career choice, find out what you like and sometimes more importantly what you don’t in a way that’s hard to get with 1-2 internships at other schools. The pay is a nice bonus.

All that said, here are a few numbers that I know of. The bottom of this page has suggested salaries for CCIS. Note that this is a hot field currently and will be on the high side, but is pretty accurate to the college in my experience. I can’t find the source now but I believe the average co-op pay is around $18-$20/hour across all majors. CCIS/COE/DMSB tend to be the higher ones, CAMD/CSSH tend to be the lower ones.

https://www.ccis.northeastern.edu/experiential-learning/employers/

I would agree with above. The length of the coop, the support from NEU advisors in getting coops, interviewing, etc are all invaluable. Having a full year or more of experience when you leave your undergrad years is incredible. The pay can vary a lot, inc. many that are unpaid as I would expect with a lot of internships. I would guess that because of the NEU affiliation and past experience with other coops from NEU, companies and agencies probably pay more than if you went on your own to get an internship. Companies also know that if an internship turns out to not be that meaningful of an experience for a student, then NEU will not recommend future students to work there. My older D had two unpaid internships, but one with a very prominent US Senator and then one at an embassy overseas (poli sci major.) The latter provided housing and NEU gave her $6000 scholarship which covered most of her costs. Both were invaluable to her landing a great job right after she graduated within the US Congress. Younger D starts her first coop tomorrow in CAMD and is getting $19 per hour with a great firm in Boston. I hear some research positions are not paid, and of course CS tech coops get lots of money, lots of perks and often housing (at least in Silicon Valley.) But the experience is priceless.

I’m not sure of the pay differences on average. There are many majors/industries where unpaid or stipend internships are the norm and others where they are highly paid. A few things I will mention as far as perks of co-op over an internship:

Typically a Northeastern co-op fills one full-time position at a company. Though the student will change every six month, the work still needs to be done and the position stays the same. Summer internships seem to involve MUCH less actual work and learning. You might shadow a few people or work on a few projects, but you won’t get nearly the amount of experience; why would they waste time training you on softwares and processes if you’re going to be there for 8-10 weeks? This also means that on a resume, co-op students tend to be able to have very robust descriptions of their job duties and talk more in depth in an interview than a student with an “internship” could about the job.

The time period has actually been important to me. Not only is 6 months incredibly more valuable than 2, but the summer can be kind of a slower time in a lot of industries. At the very least, I’ve found coworkers take much more time off in the summer and the office can be a bit empty. This makes it harder to network and learn from them at the usual work pace. Also, while this is kind of specific, I studied accounting and my first co-op was with a Big 4 firm. My co-op took place January-June which was insanely busy. The summer interns rolled in mid-June. There was probably at least 3 times the number of interns as there were co-ops, and combined with the fact that the summer is very slow in that business, they had almost no work and learned basically nothing. I actually hated my time there working 65 hours a week, and ended up changing my concentration from accounting to finance. BUT I only knew that I hated it because I got to see what it was “really” like in the busy season. If I had been a summer intern, I would’ve only been working 40 hours a week including ice cream parties and Red Sox games, and probably would have worked there post-grad and hated my life.

What an astute observation about the accounting co-op vs. what an internship would have been like. That is so true. Co-ops are just as much about figuring out what you don’t want to do as they are what you want to do. Likewise, so many people go straight to law school right out of college, then wind up at a law firm, and hate their profession.

Even if you are in a summer internship, spend some time observing the fulltime employees and talk to them. Life, once you are hired, is not going to be about hanging out with your other intern buddies. Do people work there a long time? Do they seem happy? I know they have to sell the place to the interns, but if you are observant, you can read between the lines. Not every job is going to be happiness every day, but sometimes people wind up in entire professions that are just wrong for them based on the fact that they liked classes they took in that area. Just words of wisdom from an old time who now has the benefit of hindsight.

I remember when my daughter had her first co-op, looking back over what she experienced during her 6 months of employment - she went to an office party (was shocked to see the women dressing up in the ladies room between work and the party), called in sick, served jury duty, her boss retired (so she switched bosses midway through the co-op), took vacation days, submitted her hours on time every week, commuted in a major snowstorm, met with a sales vendor, etc. - all in addition to the basics of showing up on time, figuring out where/when to get lunch, learning where, when, and how to get help if she needed it, etc. All of it an invaluable experience of learning how the “real” world works.