This question is a riff off a comment made by @Mom2aphysicsgeek in another thread. So, assuming a college is ABET accredited in your preferred major, you can get in, and you can afford it, which colleges have the best co-op opportunities with any specific details you can add?
Thanks & happy aloha Friday!
In my somewhat limited experience most of the schools with engineering colleges or departments support co-op programs. Some require it such as U of Cincinnati, U of Toledo, and Kettering University, but most have some type of department which helps in finding a co-op. My D attends Purdue and has a co-op. One difference between their program and some others is the ability to co-op for either 5 terms or 3 terms. Where she co-ops, however, are students from U of Cincinnati, U of Louisville, Purdue obviously, and the University of Missouri. A friend of hers also from U of Louisville co-oped at Dow Corning.
One thing about co-ops is that they are jobs and you do need to seek out interviews and interview for the position. Many schools have job fairs where you will be able to talk to companies about the types of work they do. In the case of Purdue if I remember correctly you can pick out I think 4 companies and they will put your application in with them and they choose whether or not they want to interview you. Our D also was able to set up an interview directly at the job fair which she had to report to Purdue. Some schools allow and even encourage students to work at different companies while they co-op, others like Purdue require you to stay with one company unless they determine there is a problem. Schools that require co-ops have the advantage of normally always having courses available when you need them. Those that are not mandatory can in some situations leave you rearranging the standard schedule. Our D is doing the 5 term co-op as a Chem E. She is just now taking OChem 1 as a junior because it was not available the summer after her freshman year or the spring of her sophomore year. She’s behind in her Chemistry courses but ahead in her ChemE and Math courses.
There are schools which don’t allow co-oping and will not support it. Vanderbilt is one such university. I’ll conclude by saying in my opinion there is no “best” school for co-oping. Companies are looking for good students and they can come from any number of schools. I never knew U of Louisville even had an engineering department but there are at least 4 students from Louisville that my D knows who co-op.
It would be hard to beat Northeastern in Boston. All students are required to do co-op (or other experiential learning). Most students do three 6-month co-ops, but there is an option to do only two.
Purdue is strong in engineering and has a lot of co-op opportunities.
Georgia Tech
Drexel
RIT. Engineering majors are required to complete 14 months of co-op, so typically semester+summer, twice.
I’ve been impressed by RIT grads.
Stevens institute of technology. I believe some of the co-ops are in NYC.
DS is at Georgia Tech (EE major). He has 3 roommates(all ME majors). They are all juniors. He and 2 of his roommates are doing co-ops. I am unsure if the other roommate tried to get a co-op or not but I do know it that it wasn’t that hard for the 3 of them to find co-ops.
There are other schools which do not have a formalized co-op program, but withdrawal and readmission is administratively easy to do, so a student can roll his/her own co-op program if s/he gets a job lasting a summer plus a semester or quarter. However, s/he needs to check carefully if there are any key prerequisite courses only offered in specific semesters, resulting in more than a semester delay if s/he takes a co-op during that semester.
I considered Semester in Industry program 30 years ago. I could have made the Fall co-op work by going to summer sessions. But it would have made things tricky for housing / roommates. I did summer internship tyupe of job instead. The logistics were easier.
I would say NorthEastern as well.
We get interns from all over the place and Purdue sends us more than a handful every year. As a Purdue grad myself I am amazed to see the improvement since my days :). One thing to consider if you’re in a co-op nice but not required type school is how well the curriculum aligns with potential co-ops. Meaning, are important classes offered more than once a year? U Cinci is some strange trimester I think. Purdue is not, of course, and if you want to co-op and miss some class you may find yourself graduating later than you think even with co-op. Withdrawing completely may not be required if you can take online classes the semesters you co-op.
U Louisville has a pretty good engineering program, and is very co-op friendly. Cinci of course is sort of the king of Co-Op’s but check their academic calendar to see what pace you’re expected to take classes while you’re not co-oping.Both cities are very interesting, Cinci especially.
Thank you all for the great insight! My D has RIT and Stevens on her list. U of Cinn was on the list, but didn’t make the final cut. It might be worth adding back. Northeastern was also on the list, but she decided against taking SAT subject tests, which makes it a no-go.
@palm715 Northeastern only requires SAT II’s for home schooled applicants.
Many students hesitate to participate in optional coop because they fear that they will lose touch with their friends, be out of sync with the rest of their class and have to make up what they missed. At Northeastern and Drexel the school is built around coop, it is part of the institutional culture.
There are challenges at schools not designed around coops. One of the biggest ones is finding housing. Especially with D’s 5 term coop she is always moving. She has been able to find housing every semester and and pretty much has housing set at her job for her last three terms. The experience has really made her much more mature. She has to find where to live, sign the short term contracts, budget, pay her bills, buy groceries and generally run her life much like it will be after graduation.
As for friends one can look at things in a couple of different ways. While you leave some of your school friends you gain a new set of friends at your job. She now has HS friends, college friends and coop friends.
As a rule she considers school more stressful than the coop but the coop helps her see the purpose behind the education (even if she doesn’t feel she’ll really ever have to use the math she’s learned). It’s also difficult for Mom and I. She’s been home for about 60 days since her freshman year began. She’s been home for 10 days this year so far. I wish your D success. I know it’s been exciting for us to see our D challenged both academically and as a young adult and meet the challenges.
I agree. My son did a study abroad in NZ and was gone for Spring semester. If the students at school are regularly doing study abroad and co-ops, then it feels more common for students to be coming and going.
" One of the biggest ones is finding housing. Especially with D’s 5 term coop she is always moving" - True. It’s a pain to move a lot, but finding a vacancy is easier when most students are in the same co-op mode. Many Northeastern students live in on-campus apartments or nearby during co-op. So they continue to have friendships, clubs etc during co-op term. Of course some opt for co-ops in other cities in US and abroad.
Like others have mentioned, Georgia Tech has a wonderful co-op program. They just had their career fair as well as career fairs for many majors. 100’s of companies recruit at it for co-op positions. If your student doesn’t want to do a co-op, then there is the paid internship option. Since Tech is a three semester co-op school, housing is not an issue since they make it flexible for co-op students. My DD is a second year there and is in the middle of interviewing for co-ops (keeping fingers crossed that she gets one). Tech has a good career center and does lots of prep workshops to help students land co-ops. Plus Tech has Tech Square where companies are flocking to create innovative centers. It seems like every other week I am reading about new companies coming to Tech Square. Another plus is location, lots of companies in the Atlanta region add to the co-op scene.
fingers crossed, @itsv