<p>Just remember that when you do a co-op you delay your graduation date. That is one reason (some) students prefer summer internships over co-ops. There is a procedure to put your scholarship on hold for the semester(s) that you co-op. I would inquire about that procedure if your son is interested in doing a co-op. Many students spend more than one semester doing a co-op for the same company which usually leads to a job offer after graduation.</p>
<p>I bought my S a used bike for riding to classed and am worried about that especially when he said that we wasn’t going to wear a helmet. He always wears one at home but he said students at UA don’t wear them.</p>
<p>As far as internships, I don’t think you can rely on any school for handing you a job. Have a strong resume and use your networking skills to find positions.</p>
<p>@WAPACKER:</p>
<p>Just my experience, but I agree.</p>
<p>All of the other schools my son was considering were ranked in the top 10 in engineering. On every single one of those tours some of the first words they spoke were ‘work experience!’. They all emphasized how essential it was for students in engineering to get work experience, all promoted all the big named, national companies they worked with, all noted the large percentage of their students that graduated with work experience.</p>
<p>At UA on our first tour, we met with an associate professor in the engineering department. I asked about the availability of internships for students and he stopped speaking and looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language. After a LONG pause, he carefully chose his words and responded, “some students with personal connections are able to get an internship”??? My son had no personal connections in engineering, did that mean he was going to get left out, that there’d be no opportunities for him??? So i was hopeful that that prof was just out of touch and I asked our honor’s ambasador, mechanical engineering student tour guide, have you or any of your friends completed any internships? Once again, I was met with that blank stare. After another long pause he responded “Oh a summer job? I need to look for one of those.” It was like the word internship wasn’t in the vocabulary. That was my BIGGEST concern about UA.</p>
<p>When we toured again, I specifically requested to meet with someone who could alleviate my concerns and we got scheduled for a meeting with the co-op office. The woman in charge was very enthusiastic about the program. She emphasized how she was trying to grow the program. It was very evident that she knew how critical it was and the import she placed on it, the only problem was my son wasn’t interested in doing a co-op, he didn’t want to add a year to graduation and wasn’t prepared to make a committment to work for a company for multiple terms until he was sure that he liked the company and the work he was doing.</p>
<p>That said, even though we started searching for internships late in the year (he was considering travelling abroad and didn’t make the decision until spring), there were LOTS of opportunities that were advertised online, and son actually got the first internship he applied for. He applied to 6-10 in total and got 2 interviews. His second interview did not go well (they were asking him technical questions about material he had not yet learned), so it seems he did get a bit lucky with the first opportunity we found. However I strongly believe that if we’d started searching earlier in the year, we would have found even more opportunities.</p>
<p>For next summer, we’ve already started looking for opportunities (he did have a good experience last summer and could most likely return if he wanted, but it was not in his exact area of interest, so we’re hoping that now with experience on his resume he can find a position more in line with what he wants to do long term).</p>
<p>
I would agree with. In addition, a student at Bama will have an easier time finding jobs in the South and a tougher time in other regions compared to students already in those regions. This is an issue at ANY school. Major international companies recruit all over the place … they are not that big an issue. However, most companies focus their recruiting (or at least their recruiting for a lot of jobs) on local schools because it is cheaper and more efficient for them. So if my Massachusetts kid goes to Bama and wants internships in the Boston area it’s tougher than if s/he is at UMass … it can be done but a lot of the initiative will have to come from the student … (and possibly money … a local Boston firm is not likely to fly a student up from Bama to interview … so the student is on the hook to get themselves to the interview or to be able to beat an in-person interview of a local candidate with their phone interview).</p>
<p>I learned this when I got a masters in Engineering at Stanford and wanted to work in Boston … I thought I was set with my degrees … but finding jobs in the east was a challenge. One example, for my spring break week I arranged 5 interviews back east; 1 a day … and did manage to talk the companies to split my travel expenses 5 ways … but it was all on me to make this happen.</p>
<p>As I said earlier this is an issue at ANY school not in the area where the student wants to work</p>
<p>the co-ops that i am aware of are three semesters. you alternate semesters working/going to school. while i didn’t think this sounded very good when my daughter was a freshman/sophomore, i think it might be a good idea now. i think it is especially great for those students paying their own way, as it is a good way to make a good amount of money. it is also good that the company might offer you a job afterward. i think internships might be better, though, so students can be exposed to, potentially, three different companies. most kids don’t know exactly what they want to do, and doing summer internships is a way to help figure it out.</p>
<p>it does take some effort on the students part, as internships/co-ops don’t just fall into your lap.</p>
<p>many big companies hire their summer interns/co-ops in the FALL! that’s right! they are interviewing NOW for summer jobs. this is fine if you are aware of it, but if not, you miss the boat on a lot of them. you can find them other ways, but i think the easiest way is through the school. if you want to co-op in your home state, then you might need to find something on your own.</p>
<p>my daughter wants to come back to her home state for work after graduation, so she is having to do a lot of looking outside of the career center to make that happen. we are talking to our connections here to try to hook her up with interviews.</p>
<p>@3togo</p>
<p>While I agree that most local companies aren’t going to fly a student to their location to interview. At many schools, interviewers come to campus and interview students on-site in MUCH larger numbers.</p>
<p>I attended Indiana U, for a week each spring, their business department alone brings interviewers to campus from across the country. Over the course of several days, just the business department conducts nearly <em>10,000</em> on campus interviews each year.
(The UCSO serves more than 5,000 student registrants each year and coordinates recruiting activities for more than 300 employers who schedule over 10,000 on-campus interview schedules.)</p>
<p>Here are just a few links from IU an equivalently ranked and sized school:</p>
<p>[Career</a> Services: Current Students: Indiana University Bloomington](<a href=“Indiana University Bloomington”>Indiana University Bloomington) -> a coordinated list of resources for every major on campus</p>
<p>[Career</a> Services : Enrollment Bulletin: Indiana University Bloomington](<a href=“http://enrollmentbulletin.indiana.edu/pages/carserv.php?Term=2]Career”>http://enrollmentbulletin.indiana.edu/pages/carserv.php?Term=2) -> the available, for credit, courses offered by their career services office</p>
<p>In contrast, UA advertised at it’s fall career fairs (which included both business/general interest and engineering) more than 160 businesses would be attending - half the number that recruit at Indiana U which does not include engineering ([UA</a> Career Fairs Bring More Than 160 Employers to Campus | University of Alabama News - The University of Alabama](<a href=“http://uanews.ua.edu/2013/09/ua-career-fairs-bring-more-than-160-employers-to-campus/]UA”>http://uanews.ua.edu/2013/09/ua-career-fairs-bring-more-than-160-employers-to-campus/))</p>
<p>And it’s not because Indiana has an abundant amount of local businesses hoping to keep these students in the local area…</p>
<p>We’re only about 4 weeks into the semester and by my count at least 6 major organizations have been on campus at UA looking for interns. </p>
<p>I know of at least 1 parent who was discouraged about UA because of the perceived lack of internship opportunties based on a converstion with a UA parent. That’s too bad.</p>
<p>i was looking at the career center last night. IMO, there are not nearly enough major companies recruiting at UA. idk how many grads there are in my daughters major, but there didn’t seem to be nearly enough companies interviewing. maybe they are not all online yet, but so far the offerings are slim.</p>
<p>jrcsmom.<br>
I understand and agree … companies go where the fish are plentiful. In your example you mentioned 300 companies scheduling 10,000 interviews … 300 companies from around the country. In my example I mentioned running my own job search from Stanford … in the days before in the internet I wrote to 150+ companies in New England alone. I agree major companies travel to find employees … however there are tens of thousands of potential employers … and I’ll stand by my comment that the majority of companies hiring a skill set in a region are NOT looking outside the region for the new hires or interns … a student who shows a lot of initiative can find some great opportunities among the companies that DO NOT come to campus; your resume may be a in a much smaller pile than when competing for nationally recruited position(s).</p>
<p>We too had a good laugh and a few comments regarding the online tour accents! My child, who is now a freshman, said that she rarely hears the southern twangs because everyone is from all over the country. I have threatened her though if I hear any y’all’s from her that she’ll spend the summer with her grandparents in Chicago! :-)</p>
<p>A major company I worked for recruited mostly from the Big 10 and didn’t recruit at my small LAC. Just because a company doesn’t recruit on campus doesn’t mean you can’t get a job there.</p>
<p>nope, it doesn’t, but the school should provide a good chance for, at least, its better students to get jobs.</p>
<p>it is a lot easier to get interviews through university recruiting than on your own. last year when my daughter was looking for an internship, she filled out dozens of online apps. heard NOTHING from any of them except an auto-generated response. </p>
<p>the internship she ended up getting was through a contact a professor had and not through the career center (or her online efforts) at all.</p>
<p>@3togo/riprorin</p>
<p>I completely agree, my S did his internship last summer at a city government that did not recruit on campus. It was not a large national well-known company, so there was not significant competition to get the job.</p>
<p>For my son, it’s not an issue at all. I know I am able to seek out opportunities for him and not being restricted by a group of companies that are interviewing on campus actually provides more opportunities. We can seek out opportunities in locations that work for us or in specific career areas that might be less in demand.</p>
<p>But, my concern is for the students that don’t know how to seek out these opportunities…or worse yet, the students that don’t know they need to.</p>
<p>Forget on-line apps. Network.</p>
<p>First off, allow me to apologize if my previous comment on this thread offended. I meant it to be light hearted.</p>
<p>With respect to internships, my son found the business school and Honors College Dean Shane Sharpe to be very helpful in identifying them. That said, the internships were very competitive and required him to hone his interviewing skills, polish/fine tune his resume over and over, and sell himself. As a result, he landed a well paying internship last summer that resulted in a job offer. More importantly, the process of learning how to sell himself was an invaluable educational experience and he is far more accomplished and prepared for the real world as a result.</p>
<p>Similarly, learning how to “shmooze” (aka network) has paid huge dividends for him. He landed his film internship at UA through networking connections and just landed a part-time job at the Center for Public Television, in large part because he got an early heads-up on the position through a networking contact. </p>
<p>The opportunities are there at UA, pamomofthree, but everyone needs to learn how to compete for them. At 'Bama your son will have ample opportunity to participate in mock job/internship interviews, receive help in crafting an a resume that sells, and to network. It’s all part of the hidden curriculum.</p>
<p>Best of luck with your decisions going forward. :)</p>
<p>One way for UA to increase the number of companies recruiting on campus is for friends and families of current and past UA students to help encourage their employers to recruit at UA. Even if it’s just posting the position on the career center’s job board and conducting phone interviews, that’s one more company recruiting at UA. In addition, a lot of companies recruit at UA because they hired a UA graduate who applied online and were so impressed that they want to hire other UA graduates.</p>
<p>As many have posted, many companies will only look at candidates located in that region unless they recruit nationally, which in that case leads to an even stronger applicant pool. There is still the idea floating around that students attend college in the region they wish to work. This applies to students from top schools, flagship universities, LACs, smaller public colleges, etc. Students who want to work in a different region have to market themselves in that region. This isn’t to say that students need to attend college in the same area they wish to work, it just means they need to be more proactive in their job search.</p>
<p>UA hosts a lot of resume writing, interview preparation, and networking events. However, it’s up to the student to read the emails and signs announcing them and attend. Students need to have formal clothing read at a moment’s notice for these events as sometimes events originally only open for specific majors will become open for students in their major. There were times when I’d learn that a company I was interested in was visiting another department on campus and the presentation was starting in 45 minutes.</p>
<p>UA’s MIS (Management Information Systems) program places a huge emphasis on having a polished resume, great interview skills, and experience networking. As a result, they have something like a 96-100% employment rate for recent graduates. A student in any major can have the same amount of networking and preparation if they attend enough events geared towards such.</p>
<p>Since I come from a more tornado prone area, sending my D to Tuscaloosa was never an issue. I will say that UA and the city of Tuscaloosa are way more prepared for any future tornadoes than Dallas County, Texas. There have been way more tornadoes in Dallas County, TX than Tuscaloosa County, AL. How the city and school have made preparations for shelters is beyond amazing. In my recent search of the newly built condos and UA buildings, they have factored in the use of storm shelters. The condo we stayed at this past weekend was brand new and the laundry rooms had been reinforced with steel structures to be used as a tornado shelter.<br>
In contrast, my area and our own school district are a big let down. VERY BIG! In April of 2012 we had over a dozen tornadoes touch down and many more that did not. The schools in the entire North Texas region were basically on “lock down” starting around 11:30am-12noon. Our schools have no basements nor do many buildings and homes due to our expansive clay soil and underground water tables. My own house is built on white rock with a spring that has water running thru the layers. If I were to dig a hole it would fill up with water, after I dynamited it out, lol. Even now, builders are not putting in rooms that are reinforced to be used as shelters. One nearby district had an elementary school hit that day, no fatalities but it was not an F4 or F5, thank the good lord. Our district has since added onto 3 out of 7 high schools, built 2 new elementary schools, etc and not one single one has any kind of shelter or reinforcement for shelters to be used. Disappointing to say the least. Lock down that day lasted till around 5:00pm. DD1 was at school and she was actually in the best lock down location of any of us. Her high school, over a 100 years old is actually built into a slope and she was in the area that would most likely be considered a “basement” if using that term loosely. DD2’s school had a tornado overhead that never touched down but she was home that day sick. Our house, trust me, after that I still keep saying that I am going to have one large storage closet we have reinforced to be used as a shelter. One would think that having some kind of shelter would be a given in this area, it is not. </p>
<p>Sending my kiddo to UA, they are well prepared! One of the new buildings to be constructed at the old Bryce Lawn property will include a large storm shelter.</p>
<p>Re on-line job searches, my S got an engineering internship this past summer (in between Fr & So) via an on-line application. (He sent out about 18 apps online and a small handful of separate emails, so I thought that was quite a lot, and he heard back from only this 1.) Luck? Perhaps. If you find something you’re really interested in, go beyond the online app - research the company and find out who is the person in charge of hiring the intern. Then, send a personal email to that person, along with resume, so they can marry up email resume with the app resume. On-line job searches can be done! Good luck. </p>
<p>In relation to Aero-Eng’g, I will echo what others have said: in order to find jobs, internships, or co-ops, be prepared to find them on your own. It’s nice if someone is there to help you, but you really need to do your own legwork. PM me if you want specifics.</p>
<p>Don’t forget jobs on campus. There are some interesting opportunities.</p>
<p>“How the city and school have made preparations for shelters is beyond amazing.”</p>
<p>I agree 100 percent, TxNCMom. The school system and the UA both saved many lives by implementing a well-thought out preparedness plan. It could have been much worse. This storm was not typical in the area, but they were prepared. Our schools could learn from Tuscaloosa"s.</p>