<p>Also, if it’s uncompensated, an internship must primarily be a training experience for the intern, and not performing significant valuable work for the employer. This, of course, gets bent 20 ways from Sunday.</p>
<p>But they have to catch you. There are so many real off the books jobs I doubt this is high on the list to chase down. Who would complain in a non-union environment?</p>
<p>So, frazzled, are you saying that even students at mandatory co-op schools (Northeastern, RIT, Drexel, etc) and major voluntary schools (Georgia Tech) are having a hard time finding co-ops?</p>
<p>Chardo - if your student is considering one of these schools, I would encourage you to cross-examine the co-op offices and upper class students about their co-op experiences. Find out how they apply, and what happens if they do not get interviews, or get interviews but no offers. Sometimes a university lab will take on a student and call it a co-op, if a student strikes out elsewhere. This can provide great experience, but might not be exactly what a student was anticipating when they decided to do a co-op.</p>
<p>Drexel was not a mandatory co-op school when S looked; I do not know about the others. When S applied to Drexel, it was carefully explained to him that they did not guarantee that he would find a co-op if the job market were to go south, even though he was way over the 75% for admitted students, stats-wise, and had been offered a large merit scholarship. I did talk with someone at a party a few years ago who works for Drexel, and she mentioned that students in some of the engineering majors were having trouble finding co-ops.</p>
<p>Any time a co-op or internship is required for graduation, though, I would look very carefully at the quality of the co-ops that are available. (Same thing applies to mandatory capstone projects or senior design projects.) My own S attended a voluntary co-op school, and if he wanted a gig at a company that did not normally hire co-ops from his school, he needed to get the company to fill out quite a bit of paperwork to meet the school’s standard for co-op credit. I imagine that some schools have standards that are more rigid than others.</p>
<p>Although S’s school did not require co-op for graduation, they did require a senior design project. From what he saw, getting a “good” design project was a competitive process, although everybody got “something”, however makeshift, in time for graduation. In a competitive market, having an impressive senior project on a resume can only help the resume pop out of the pile.</p>
<p>D applied more recently, and was not interested in doing co-op. However, she did look carefully at the caliber of research opportunities available at different schools, as she is interested in applying to a funded graduate program.</p>
<p>this is a very interesting thread. </p>
<p>It seems to me, with a limited sampling pool, those who finds on campus jobs, interns, and/or other jobs tend to find jobs after graduation. Some will have several options at every summer and however many jobs on campus. Some will have a very hard time landing even a on campus part time job. </p>
<p>So, I like for those who have first knowledges to give the top three factors. </p>
<p>I persoanlly have very limited knowledge about recent graduates except a couple interns. I would give as following:</p>
<h1>1 personality/motivation of the student</h1>
<h1>2 work experiences/references</h1>
<h1>3 GPA, we don’t look below certain GPA for interns, for example</h1>
<p>Once you are in certain range or region, the school name really does not make that much difference.</p>
<p>My son is graduating in May with a degree in Computer Engineering. I guess he was one of the lucky ones and had 3 job offers to choose from. He moves to San Jose in the August.</p>
<p>When he went to the job fair the first question was what is your gpa? Two of his friends were under 3.0 and they were told sorry we are not interviewing anyone under a 3.0 right now. BTW he did get his job through the job fair on campus.</p>
<p>I think Location is important and the type of engineering. Son says most of his friends in EE, Computer Engineering, and Computer Science are finding good jobs and not having to look real hard. I would agree with others you have to be ready to move and make it a national search.</p>
<p>With cut backs on Fed Spending i would think Civil is going to get real tough very soon.</p>
<p>Other than civil (and perhaps nuclear), this is not a bad job market for engineering at all. And most certainly not for EE or or Chem E, which have been super-hot in the past few years. </p>
<p>Just my opinion, but the jobs are there. The problem is finding enough people to fill them.</p>
<p>
Agree with finance. For sales/marketing, not in the first 10-15 years. But the engineer will hit a breakpoint where compensation stagnates, and he will need to choose between engineering, management, entrepreneurship, sales/marketing. Engineering will only be competitive in terms of compensation for the very few true engineering leaders. </p>
<p>As for “grossly undercompensated”, hmmm. As an engineer, you certainly worked hardest in school. But trust me, you have no idea how hard it is to achieve in sales. Those guys work like dogs.</p>
<p>^^ exactly. It is almost impossible to find a Ph.D level Chem. E. with right experiences. We started last May looking to fill three jobs. Those who are good, they have multiple offers and they pick better company, or better city, or better pay. Those who does not have other offers, we could see why. </p>
<p>As of today, we got -0-.</p>
<p>I know this is just anecdotal, but DS got an Environ Eng. job with no internships; however, he had 2 years of research, full-time in the summer, and lots of hands-on work w/technical equipment… so lack of internships is not necessarily a deal-breaker. I think it helps that his research experience was substantial and relevant to his new job.</p>
<p>I think it depends on the specialty of engineering. I’ve heard the same as drizzit, EE, CS, CE graduates have plenty of job offers while aerospace, mechanical, civil engineering graduates have to go to graduate schools.</p>
<p>The husband of a coworker was laid off at Lucent (after the internet bubble - I think that he was either Chem or Mech) and he did a certificate program in plastics at the local state university and got full-time work before he finished the program (he did finish the program). He worked for may years, most recently contracting and was laid off two months ago but he’s tapping his contacts and he’s optimistic about finding contract work. Plastics was booming in this area many years ago and it looks like things have cooled off since then. A lot of things are cyclical.</p>
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</p>
<p>It seems the job market is best since 2008 according to this latest article.</p>
<p>[Job</a> openings rise to highest point since Sept.'08 - Yahoo! Finance](<a href=“http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Job-openings-rise-to-highest-apf-3216932201.html;_ylt=AvUtCQ4YIZKqijhPvHAhfhS7YWsA;_ylu=X3oDMTE1aWZrZ3ZqBHBvcwMzBHNlYwN0b3BTdG9yaWVzBHNsawNqb2JvcGVuaW5nc3I-?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=main&asset=&ccode=]Job”>http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Job-openings-rise-to-highest-apf-3216932201.html;_ylt=AvUtCQ4YIZKqijhPvHAhfhS7YWsA;_ylu=X3oDMTE1aWZrZ3ZqBHBvcwMzBHNlYwN0b3BTdG9yaWVzBHNsawNqb2JvcGVuaW5nc3I-?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=main&asset=&ccode=)</p>
<p>Of course for those worried about engineering earnings there are many who like the challenges and don’t just go into it for the money. To go into engineering for $$ is not a wise move frankly.</p>
<p>Engineering can be a great base that leads to better paying careers but I would think it would be tough to even finish an engineering degree if you were only after the $$.</p>
<p>At a college fair last night, I asked the RIT rep whether there was any difficulty finding co-ops. She said it’s actually the opposite lately. With the recent economy, many of their partner companies have increased their co-op hiring to save money. Co-op students cost less than entry level hires (plus no employee benefits), and they get an extended look at potential future employees. This helps their employee retention down the road.</p>
<p>Is this just admissions-speak or is there some truth here?</p>
<p>I think companies are having interns do work that they would have to pay someone else to do. I was surprised that a company would let an intern do some of the things my daughter did over the summer and she knows a girl who was one of about 30 summer interns at a fashion house. I think this is pretty exploitative because there’s no way they could ever hire that many people and all of these kids are hoping that it will lead to a job offer. Of course with all that free labor, there’s no need to hire anyone.</p>
<p>Most fashion houses do 4-8 shows/collections per year so summer interns just allow the exhausted staff a chance to get some vacation time in. My sister worked in major fashion houses for many years until she just was too tired to do it anymore and took a design job with the Gap.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/03/business/03intern.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/03/business/03intern.html</a></p>
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</p>
<p>" the employer “derives no immediate advantage” from the intern’s activities — in other words, it’s largely a benevolent contribution to the intern."</p>
<p>Interesting. I don’t think the internship my son has is a particularly benevolent contribution from the company. They said he’d be working his butt off, solving problems and doing work that actual employees do. Then again, they also will only give interns to those managers that say they would be willing to hire the intern when they complete their degree, and hope the students will come back to the company after graduation. I don’t think there are too many companies that are just hiring interns out of the goodness of their hearts anymore, it is to do work, check the intern out, and as a recruiting tool.</p>
<p>Obviously the law is out of step with common practices/reality and would have major negative unintended consequences is strictly enforced. Just like many other laws that are generally ignored or not strictly enforced.</p>