Co-op

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>Unfortunately, the co-op experience is as highly dependent on the employer, sponsoring school, as it is YOU. The worse co-ops are basically glorified summer jobs, with little practical work value (but with some marginal resume-padding value.) Others are valuable in giving the student a small window into the day-to-day activities of a real engineering environment.</p>

<p>It may help if you post your school and field. For example, University of Waterloo (canada) has an outstanding engineering co-op program. It is well integrated into their core engineering curiculuum (i.e. a program requirement.)</p>

2

<p>How helpful is co oping when finding a job. Are co ops at companies like Exxon mobile competitive or are they fairly open. Are co op jobs serious engingeering jobs, or are they just like, being secretaries for real engineers. Does any one who co opped have any advice, or want to tell me something I may not know about co ops.</p>

3

<p>even at waterloo it really depends on the job you get. My last work term wasn't that great and i know some ppl who have had even worse jobs. However, some kids in the class get amazing jobs...or so they say.</p>

4

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<p>So even at the famous Waterloo, it's still luck of the draw? That's good to know...</p>

<p>A friend who went to U-Mich Ann Arbor (industrial engineering) toldme the school co-ops were somewhat inconsistent, work-experience wise. On the one hand, you had bigname employers participating in the undergrad engineering co-op program (Detroit automotive: GM, Ford, Chrysler, etc., Intel, HP, IBM, etc.), but some co-op stints were little better than summer-job at a local clerical office.</p>

<p>On the other hand, some were kick*ss. My friend co-oped at Intel's developmental fab facility. He got to put on the 'bunny suits' for cleanroom work, watch people carry around $50,000 6" silicon wafers. The novelty of getting in and out of the bunny-suit wore off pretty quick though -- it takes half an hour! (Mostly, he did data-entry of wafer pass/fail rates into some Microsoft Access database -- the PhD math dudes crunch the numbers and do the real analysis.)</p>

5

<p>friends of mine from Waterloo were very disappointed for thier co-op terms, employer didn't let them touch anything they were just sitting there and some paper work ,sometimes.</p>

6

<p>Ill be going to Cornell and studying ChemE if that makes a difference. I looked up an old post by a cornell guy and he said they pre screen employers to make sure that the work you do is useful, but that was 20 years ago. Can anyone talk about Cornell coops now? Also, has any one here cooped with Exxon or any oil company for that matter.</p>

7

<p>Do co-ops provide less meaningful work than internships? Or are co-ops basically three internships or how ever many rotations you do?</p>

8

<p>I've had two co-ops. The first company was Georgia Pacific (now Koch Industries). The location was horrible: an extremely small town. I didn't do very much but I think it was because my boss was also gone or busy. He wasn't the mill director but he was the 'smartest guy in the mill' according to EVERY employee. He always was elsewhere solving problems and didn't have time to explain or teach me a lot. It wasn't until my last two weeks, when I started tagging along with another employee that I actually got some good experience. He gave me a project and I really felt like I was contributing. Still, I only did 1 term and decided not to return.</p>

<p>The second company I worked for was a bio/pharmaceutical company. It is a small and relatively new company that branched off from a leading non-profit research group. The companies clients included the largest pharmaceutical comanies in the world (Genentech, Sanofi-Aventis, etc). I did a lot there. Of course they're were slow times, and unfortunately the project I was working on got cut because they decided to stop working on the process. I was responsible for tens of thousands of dollars of equipment though which was pretty awesome. However, I was disappointed by my direct supervisor. At my end of term evaluation he was extremely harsh I must say. Also, I ran into complications between my school and an outside scholarship and ended up losing the scholarship (fortunately just for that semester) because that particular scholarship sponsor requires that I actually be taking classes full time (even though co-op students still receive gov aid, school scholarships, etc because we are still considered full time students). However, I told my supervisor the situation and that I wouldn't be able to return in the fall (it was spring 08, and my next terms would be fall 08 and summer 09). He didn't sound too compassionate and didn't seem to care that I lost my scholarship and said that if I didn't return in the fall that I couldn't come back at all. So, needless to say, I am no longer co-oping with that company.</p>

9

<p>My D had good experience but I'm sure it depends on employer. D, an AE major, was co-op with NASA in same city as college so did not have to move every 4 months. She was given hands on experience from day one. Completed 4 semesters of work, contributing to many projects. Some of the work has already been presented at international conferences. Now has accepted job offer with NASA after graduation in August 09.</p>

10

<p>Drexel University is the top ranked school for co-op and 93% of the students participate in the program (the school is built around co-op). Additionally, its a huge engineering school and it has an internal job search system of placing highly competitive engineering co-ops to students. I'm on a 5 year program with three six-month co-ops. Almost everyone has a great time working and makes a lot of money and even though most co-op at the big engineering jobs around Philadelphia, some do co-ops halfway around the world. typical jobs include Lockheed Martin, GE, etc. Many students also receieve full-time offers. This is definitly a school to apply to if you're an engineer who wants a great co-op experience</p>

11

<p>yea... but im already accepted ED to cornell, and im instate at UIUC, so I'd go to either of those schools. </p>

<p>Anyway, does anyone have any info on Cornell Coops.</p>