<p>One of the co-op schools my son has been admitted to has reached out to parents for questions. However when I tried to get a list of recent/current co-op jobs /employers for my son's department, the co-op advisor told me that he was not comfortable releasing that list as they've worked for years to develop those contacts. I didn't ask him to explain further, but the implication seemed to be that he was worried about some kind of "espionage" where releasing the list could somehow give an advantage to another school trying to arrange co-ops or internships in the region. Does this seem at all reasonable? </p>
<p>I would have thought the schools would be proud to list the great companies that hire their students, but now I'm feeling like either the list isn't so great, or they are extremely paranoid. The advisor did name a couple of "big names" in the industry, and mentioned that they had a number of small local companies (which he did not name) hiring students in my son's area of interest.</p>
<p>What would you think of this reaction?</p>
<p>I think it’s strange and to me it shows a lack of confidence in how well their students have done in their co-op positions.</p>
<p>After a bit of googling around, here are some examples of schools that do publish lists:
Northeastern: [Representative</a> List of Co-op Employers | Northeastern University School of Law](<a href=“http://www.northeastern.edu/law/co-op/replist.html]Representative”>http://www.northeastern.edu/law/co-op/replist.html)
Case Western: [Participating</a> Employers | Engineering Co-Op Program](<a href=“http://engineering.case.edu/coop/index.php?q=participating-employers]Participating”>http://engineering.case.edu/coop/index.php?q=participating-employers)
Drexel: [Top</a> Co-op Employers:Undergraduate Students::Career Services::LeBow :](<a href=“Undergraduate Career Services Office | Drexel University's LeBow College of Business”>http://www.lebow.drexel.edu/CareerServices/Undergraduate/CoopEmployers.php)</p>
<p>Based on my experience at Northeastern, I think that kind of a list can be pretty subject to change too. If he handed you a list, it probably wouldn’t even be accurate the next semester. If somebody asked me about journalism (my major coops), I’d say that there are always people at the Globe, and I think the Patriot Ledger and a bunch of smaller newspapers, and some non-journalism related jobs at local businesses and non-profits (which I could elaborate on). I think that does give a pretty good general idea?</p>
<p>The thing with co-ops is that it’s not saying these are the majors that our school offers and your kid will graduate with one of them. Your kid has to go through the interview process and the employer has to want to hire your kid, and the employer is the one paying, so they can cut or add positions at will. Also, people can create co-ops – approach a company they’d love to work for and convince them that it would be a good idea – so the positions are not limited to whatever would be on a list like that. </p>
<p>There could be an exclusivity thing. Companies aren’t generally going to be exclusive. Maybe it’s been a problem in the past? It sounds like the way they communicated that was not very good, though. Schools really need to be more tactful dealing iwth prospective students. Also, I’m only going by my experience; I know nothing about any other school’s placement process, so it could be entirely different.</p>
<p>I was a co-op student myself for undergrad, so I certainly understand that co-op employers are not a guaranteed kind of thing like a list of majors. But I would think “here’s a list of employers who hired co-ops from our department during our last co-op cycle” would give a pretty good idea of the types of opportunities typically available.</p>
<p>Calreader, thanks, I have seen some of these types of lists online as well, but none of my son’s potential co-op schools has a list up for his department/major even when some of the other departments within the same school do put up such a list. </p>
<p>Question for eireann – are the co-op job postings exclusive to a certain department/school/major at your school? I’m pretty sure when I went to school the posting would say they were looking for someone in a certain field or fields, but anyone could apply. (Of course normally you would not even get interviewed for a job outside your field unless there was a particular reason why you’d be a good fit.)</p>
<p>We get a list online. I’m not sure exactly how it works because I never saw an engineering job (for example) posted but none of my co-ops were in straight journalism. I had one in a business doing admin work and two at non-profits doing development/communications. I had to go through different advisors to get those (they weren’t coordinated by the journalism co-op advisor) but they did appear in my online list of options to apply to. So maybe we can see any that would be relevant. I think I was even able to see business, so maybe just really major-specific ones like nursing and engineering are separated? I hope that helps.</p>
<p>Also, I agree that they should have given you a list. I was trying to think of reasons that they might not because it seems like such obvious basic marketing that I’m kind of shocked they aren’t handing out lists of “examples.”</p>
<p>Mathmon - I suggest talking to a different coop advisor. My D participated in a coop program, and she researched programs at different unis before deciding on NU. My son wants to coop also, so I have also been researching coops, and I have never run into the problem you outlined. I have to agree with the poster that suggested that it is to the coops benefit to have a large pool of known companies that they deal with.</p>
<p>Perhaps you are dealing with a newbie? Perhaps you got assigned to what is referred to technically in coop circles as an “assh**%”? I would call back and talk to someone else.</p>
<p>Giood Luck!</p>