<p>Cooperative education just looks good. Why not get some work experience with your degree? Shake things up a bit and get out in the real world while you are still learning. Drexel University cites their co-op program as the center of the entire experience. Northeastern says the same. My concern is that these two schools (Drexel, NEU) seem to not have the academic reputation that some other schools to which I will apply (ie, JHopkins, UPenn, CMU, BostonU, etc.) have. The academic reputation concerns me on the road to med school/grad school.</p>
<p>Is co-op all that good to these grad schools? It looks like something that would be very beneficial, and I don't really understand why other schools wouldn't offer it. Would this co-op experience (sometimes about 18 mos work experience) bode well for me in applying to Med School/Grad School, considering the fact that these schools aren't academically as "prominent?" I just feel as if its gotta look good for an applicant to have (besides the other MCAT scores/gpa, etc) this work experience. Is it really all its cracked up to be?</p>
<p>BTW: I am a junior in High school, GPA 4.0/4.0 (4.49 weighted), 4/570, AP/Honors courses, etc, etc., expecting 2100+ SAT. Intended major: Biomedical Engineering, or Biochemistry.</p>
<p>Thanks a lot. This board is quite informative.</p>
<p>As a person in a top business school with many friends at top 10 med schools I can honestly tell you that the Co-op won't really help you. At my grad school we have THREE people from NEU, and 96 from Penn (all the Ivies are very strong) if that helps. </p>
<p>What will get you into med school are great grades, a good MCAT, and solid research which almost any top school provides. The top schools send many to the top grad schools, but you need to make sure you are well placed in your class academically. I.e. at JHU (or any top school) if you are top 10% the world is yours, but if you are the bottom 20% you likely would have been better off going to a worse school and getting a better GPA. Also, its common sense but the more prominent the school's reputation for medicine, the likely the more cutthroat it is in that field. That's why if I were to want to go to med school I would avoid the JHUs and Cornells and gravitate toward the Browns and Northwesterns (which send the same amount to the top grad schools but are less high-strung competitive). </p>
<p>Basically if you want to go to Harvard med go to the best school where you can get the best GPA. If you dont think you can compete at these schools, go to your local state school and get a 3.7 and you likely won't get into the top grad schools, but you'll get in somewhere.</p>
<p>You might be able to achieves the same thing as co-op (obtain work experience) by simply finding summer jobs related to your field of interest. Many colleges have a co-op/internship office but don't advertise a full-blown cooperative education program. Co-op positions don't just fall into your lap. You have to pursue them even at colleges with co-op programs, and sometimes they are not easy to come by. In hard economic times there are fewer co-op opportunities. Rochester Institute of Technology also has a co-op program. Northwestern is the premier co-op university, at least for engineering. If you want co-op, I recommend majoring in biomedical engineering at Northwestern. here is the link to the co-op program at N-Western</p>
<p>Many people who do coop don't go to grad school -- so the point isn't can it get you into grad school but can it get you a job? Many people, at least at NEU, are hired by their coop employers directly out of college.</p>
<p>1) real work experience
2) exposure to real-world and office/company politics
3) if you are an engineering/comp sci major, you'll make some big $$
4) networking/social contacts
5) independence
6) you get to see if what you are interested in career-wise is really what you want to do </p>
<p>Co-op cons:
1) lots of students accept full time jobs with their employers and don't bother to graduate at all, which might come back to haunt you!
2) sometimes you don't really feel like a college student and don't get to see your friends, the more so the further away your co-op is from campus
3) not all co-op jobs are created equal -- especially for humanities majors and some business majors
4) if you are not doing well in classes, you are less likely to get a desirable co-op.</p>
<p>Conclusion: all in all, as long as you do well in classes, are reasonably bright and not socially inept, the co-op model of education can really do wonders for you!</p>