Hello, I am a High school senior from Central New Jersey. I have been accepted into the college of engineering for each school with similar financial aid packages. I was quite fond of the engineering program at Case and I was very impressed with the professors. I would also like to go to grad school in my future, so im not sure how much I would take advantage of the co-op program at Northeastern. But, Case is quite a bit further from home, and i didn’t really like how disjointed the campus felt. Also I loved Boston, while I didn’t really like Cleveland too much. Any insight is deeply appreciated, thank you!!
I’m sorry, I failed to mention I would like to major in Civil Engineering.
Why would grad school mean not taking advantage of co-op? Co-op is a great way to prepare for graduate school. I’m planning to do a PhD in bioengineering, and my 3 co-ops have gotten me great research experience and letters of recommendation, filled gaps in my knowledge that I wouldn’t have learned in classes for my major, and helped me figure out what direction I want to go.
Thank you for the input. What led me to believe that co-ops aren’t important for applying to grad schools is grad schools mainly want to see work in research (correct me if I’m wrong).
If you’re looking at PhD programs, yes, research experience is a huge part of your application. In my opinion, though, co-op is one of the best ways to get research experience. If you do 2 co-ops you’ll have 12 months of full time research experince when you’re applying to grad school, which lets you get a lot more in depth than you can do in something like summer REUs. 2 of my co-ops have been in academic labs, and my third was in industry. I really feel like that made me application stand out when I was applying for fellowships.
OP, I think that you may just not understand the breadth of research oppurtunities. Especially in a place as academic as Boston, I think that many Co-Ops ARE research experiences. I think you may have had the assumption that co-op would be limited to more typical drafting/paperwork entry level civil engineering jobs?