<p>You can do a coop going to UMass - it just isn’t for credit. There are companies in the Boston area, IBM comes to mind, that will hire students for a semester or semester + summer to do a coop. Companies generally prefer coops to summer internships because they can get more productive work out of students. It takes some time to get interns up to speed and with a summer internship, there may not be much time left over for productive work for the company.</p>