Importance of Co-op Experience

College Majors Engineering Majors
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<p>Hi -- I hope the high school seniors here have had some good news recently!</p>

<p>Now for my question ... my son is a junior, majoring in EE -- unsure if he wants to go to grad school or start work immediately upon graduation. He has interviewed for a summer internship position and been told that he has the exact qualifications they are looking for. He was told that the company would also like him to consider continuing the job in the fall semester as a co-op experience.</p>

<p>He doesn't know precisely what the job is. He has to take the position and get a security clearance to find out. (I guess then he can't tell me at any point ... reminds me of my engineer uncle, who has a portion of his career about which he has only said he "worked for the government.")</p>

<p>He has enough credits that he can graduate on time, even if he takes no classes in the fall.</p>

<p>He is tempted by the position, but is unsure how much of a benefit continuing on the job for several extra months would be in getting either permanent employment or acceptance to a graduate program. He obviously doesn't know if the position will be his particular cup of tea, since he doesn't know what it is, only that his background qualifies him for it. The counterbalancing factor is not the courses he would take in the fall otherwise, but the fact that he wanted to run to be the president of the debate club and an officer in his frat. He couldn't do these if he did the co-op thing; indeed, it is halfway across the country from his school, so he couldn't be around his friends, continue with any of his existing ECs, etc. in the fall.</p>

<p>Does anyone have any advice to offer in this situation? Unfortunately, his advisor has been uniformly unhelpful throughout, and my son has been unwilling to ask for another because he doesn't want to antagonize the guy. (I haven't agreed with my son about this, but he is as stubborn as I am and so has kept with the same advisor!)</p>

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<p>Can he take the summer intership and then decide if he wants to continue co op-ing in the fall. </p>

<p>I only have a senior in HS but every thing that we have heard from schools to current students is that interships and co ops are so very important. I've even been told from students that those who co ops received jobs after graduation and those who didn't co op did not receive offers.</p>

<p>It is hard to miss your senior fall semester and to miss all of the things that he wants to do. But it also sounds like this company might offer him permanent employment after graduation if things work out. It's a hard choice to make.</p>

3

<p>DianeR,</p>

<pre><code> My first reaction is that experience is experience, the additional few months of experience would be nice, but not all that more helpful to securing a job in the future. Employers expect that students will do summer interships and that they will go back to school in the fall. My advice is for him to take the job and only continue in it if he really loves it. It's important to stay involved in college activites and I think those benefits far outweigh the benefits of extending the work experience a few more months.
</code></pre>

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<p>I'll have to check. The impression he gave me is that he has to tell the company up front if he wants to do it in the fall as well. But if they want him in the summer, I would think they would let him decide later. He'd also have to check about when his college would have to know about the fall semester.</p>