<p>What is the technical difference between a paid internship and a co-op?</p>
<p>Older S's school (Stevens) has a co-op program. Younger S will be attending Lehigh, which also has a co-op program, but also encourages internships. </p>
<p>I am not clear on the difference.</p>
<p>First of all, all internships in engineering should be paid. If you are not paid, you are legally limited in the US in what you can do (basically just get coffee and watch).</p>
<p>As far as a co-op vs. an internship, on the job there’s no difference at all. A semester of interning is the same and has the same value as co-oping. When a student graduates, all the hiring manager cares about is that the person has 2 or more semesters of work experience. It doesn’t matter if that’s co-op or internship experience. </p>
<p>The only difference is that when a company hires a co-op, they agree to hire that person for 3 to 5 semesters (alternating with school). When a company hires an intern, they only hire that person for 1 semester. However, if the intern does a good job, it is my experience that the intern is generally invited back (often every summer, which is much more attractive in terms of school/work balance).</p>
<p>The big advantages to co-oping are (1) job security - you know where you’re going every semester and (2) it’s easy to get hired as a freshman/sophomore (many internships are for juniors/seniors). The big advantages to interning are (1) interview every year (which helps you improve your interviewing skills and prepare for your full-time interviews) and (2) you have freedom to switch companies from year to year. If you go to work for a motor manufacturer in Iowa and decide that you don’t like the location or the industry, as a co-op you are stuck, but as an intern you can switch next year.</p>
<p>Not exactly true. Many co-op students change employers for several of their co-op semesters. The whole point of a co-op program is to gain work experience in different jobs (and possibly different parts of the country) to see what you want to do with the rest of your life.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This is the case for some co-op programs but far from all… I would agree that the differences between internships and co-ops are often very blurred by both the schools and employers although typically a co-op lasts longer and therefore a student can gain more experience than from an internship. However, the biggest difference today is perhaps in the school’s commitment to experiential learning as a valuable teaching/learning method and the amount of assistance/resources the school provides to students to prepare for and find co-op jobs during their college years.</p>