<p>The opportunity to co-op has come up a couple of times on this thread. Can anyone share their experiences (or their sons/daughter’s experiences) co-oping at UA? How long did it take them to graduate? Did they feel “out of step” with their peers socially or academically missing semesters? Did they work at the same company for 3 years or did they have 2 or 3 different employers and work experiences? Did they co-op in Tuscaloosa, another city in Alabama, or out of state? If they co-oped in Tuscaloosa, were they able to live in the dorms? Finally, although I understand any scholarships won’t be used for the semesters they coop, did they still encounter any problems? </p>
<p>For those who graduated, was employment offered (and maybe accepted) at the coop position?</p>
<p>My freshman son has not seriously considered this program, but I think it might be a good option for him. However, I have a few hesitations (maybe about missing out on things while he’s working) and I just want to have answers (or as many as I can) when we talk about this possibility.</p>
<p>Our ds’s university gave the students the option of Cooping for 12 straight months and he chose that route for simplicity’s sake. Most universities encourage alternating semesters. The key factor is to not get off sequence for fall only/spring only classes. (An issue even at the largest engineering universities. This is a common issue.). The best sequence to follow if you are on the alternating semester plan is to coop during summer,than take fall only classes, co-op during spring, take summer session classes (typically humanities requirements), co-op during fall, and be back in sequence for spring only classes.</p>
<p>My ds would be the first to tell students to coop. They receive on the job training, project experience, make a hefty sum, and are more employable. Our ds did receive a job offer from the company he cooped for. Another person he worked with did not. That person did not work,hard during the coop experience. </p>
<p>Sorry that I don’t have any direct experience with UA. Our ds there is double majoring in EE and physics, but his goal is grad school in physics and he is pursuing REUs and not coops.</p>
<p>My son is currently doing a co-op. ALL co-ops are multiple work sessions with the same employer. All co-ops that I am aware of are 3 work sessions which equates to 1 full year of work experience (you work one fall semester, one spring semester, and one summer, alternated with semesters of classes). Co-ops are with the same employer because the idea is that students will learn more each of their work sessions and will be given increased responsibilities during later work sessions.</p>
<p>My son is co-oping in Tuscaloosa, but there are limited opportunities in town. Many of the opportunities are elsewhere in Alabama and almost all are in the south/south-east area. Many of the employers who are not located in town and require students to relocate during their work semesters do help find housing and some even offer housing stipends in addition to their pay. </p>
<p>For those that do happen to find an opportunity in town, I assume they could arrange to stay in the dorm, but I don’t think that’s very common. For my son, he was already living in an off-campus apartment and stayed in the same apartment during this semester as a co-op student.</p>
<p>My son definitely felt like he’d be out of step with his classmates when he chose to co-op. As a civil engineering major the department is so small that many of the students wind up in the same courses and he was hesitant about getting ‘left behind’. I told him that as the students move into upper division courses and select specialties that they most likely wouldn’t have the same courses anyway and also it might prove helpful to have friends who completed courses a semester or two earlier that he could talk to if he found he needed extra help in a class.</p>
<p>I am not sure what you mean by: “Finally, although I understand any scholarships won’t be used for the semesters they coop, did they still encounter any problems?” - there is a small fee charged during co-op semesters that is paid out of pocket and the school registers the students in a ‘placeholder’ course for 12 hours, so that they are still considered a full time student. After the semester ends, those credits are removed (students do not get any course credit for co-oping). His scholarship was placed on hold during this semester while he was doing a work session.</p>
<p>Since my son has not yet graduated I can’t say whether or not he will be offered employment, but I can say that we spoke with the co-op office during one of our visits to campus prior to his freshman year. During that visit the woman at the co-op office spoke about Mercedes and that they have a large number of interns each year, but they don’t offer positions to many of their interns. She said that every year Honda contacts her office and asks who interned at Mercedes because they knew that Mercedes didn’t make offers to many of their interns, so they wanted to know who might be seeking employment that had practical experience.</p>
<p>If you have specific questions, feel free to send me a message and if I don’t have an answer, I can ask my son.</p>
Just bumping this thread to see if anyone else has something to add. Still “pushing” my son to think about this and as a rising sophomore I know he will have to make up his mind early this semester if he decides to do a coop.
I had dinner on Saturday night with a 2013 UA grad that paid for 2 years of his Bama education with his co-op. He’s an instate student. He had originally started at UAB on scholarship, but wanted the “big school” experience, so he transferred as a rising junior sans scholarship. He had to find a way to pay!
He did a co-op with the oil industry (he’s ChemE) and worked every other semester plus summers for this company (based in Houston). They hired him full-time after graduation with a salary of $85k. He’s now been a full time employee there for 2 years and his salary is now nearly $100k…
Just a comment about eng’g salaries. While the initial starting salary for ChemEs in the petroleum industry can be very good (often highest of all grads), and the first few years see almost meteoric pay increases…these do level off. Students need to look beyond starting salaries, if they are looking at only money when choosing engineering as a profession. It’s a very comfortable living…don’t get me wrong…but do not think for a minute that you get 10% salary increases every year you’re in it!
It is a list of the students that are co-oping this summer (so you can see approximately how many students co-op each session) and a list of the companies they are working for. They will probably publish another list in the fall which will be different students and may include a few different companies, while this list of students are in their class session.
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but do not think for a minute that you get 10% salary increases every year you’re in it!
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lol…absolutely not!
However, we’ve seen young engineers’ salaries rise pretty quickly just because companies want to keep them. The older, established eng’rs are often only getting 2-3% raises, mostly because 2-3% of their higher salaries are a lot of money, but also because the companies know that they’re not likely jumping ship…particularly if the company offers a pension.
Thanks everyone for the replies. I have a recent ME graduate who did 3 summers interning. Unfortunately his starting salary wasn’t even close to the ChemE one listed above. We are in the Chicago-Milwaukee corridor so you would think that starting salaries would be high, but my son and his other ME friends have found that the starting salary for all the jobs they interviewed for in area was less than what they expected. The starting salary per the websites for our area was $60,000. Their experience was the actual starting salaries were $45,000 to a high of $65,000. Not sure if co-oping and getting one more year of “experience” would have made a difference. (They noticed that higher paying jobs needed at least 3 years experience.)
You all are right about older engineers getting 2-3% raises. My husband works for a big company in our area and that is all he has gotten for the last 10 years or so (and he is an excellent employee.) Because of his age and pension, they pretty much know he won’t jump ship so they get “away” with it.
I do like the idea of my EE son getting a co-op. He is not really sold on the idea which is why I was seeking more information. I have asked him to go to the fall interviews anyway to see what happens. Besides this is a great way to get interview experience. Hopefully he does this.
Not hard and fast, but: starting ChemE$ (esp petroleum) > starting Aero$/Electrical$/Mechanical$/Civil$.
ANY experience can and should be bartered for additional starting money - but especially relevant internships and co-ops, no matter the length. AND don’t forget any undergrad research opportunities the student has had AND all of those engineering extracurriculars and team projects that UA offers. Leadership of 1 of these team projects is golden experience on a resume, but any involvement is certainly worth mentioning as ‘experience’, as is involvement in CBHP, etc. If you’re negotiating a starting salary, use everything you’ve been involved in as a student to demonstrate not only experience, but leadership, commitment, and involvement. The higher you start, the greater the salary increases will be (% applied to a higher number yields a higher number), at least for several initial years. (I actually wish colleges would have a mandatory personal finance course for soon-to-be grads, and teach them the tricks of how to manage their first job - not just how to budget and sign up for 401k plans…but a really hands-on life-lesson kind of class.)
As many of you know, my son is in his first semester of his ME co-op. So far, so good. I have no idea what the job market will be like when he graduates, but aside from delaying graduation by a year (since he came in with no AP credits), I see no downside. He really likes the company, enjoys working with fellow students and graduates of several different schools, and loves full-time work and being treated like a professional. Making $18 an hour (plus occasional overtime) doesn’t hurt either.
I think doing a co-op in Alabama makes working in the South after graduation much easier to envision, as well, something I told him he needed to be prepared for if he elected to attend UA from the Northeast. He’s looking forward to visiting Huntsville (aka “Rocket City”) this summer, too, to visit with a couple of school friends and to check out the area, which is a home to a number of large aerospace employers.
I’m happy to answer any questions if anybody has any or wants to PM me.
One of my older son’s best friends and fraternity brothers did a co-op while at Alabama. He was an ME major. Now works for the company where he co-oped and is making around 70K. His company also sent him to Canada to work for several months.
