Can every student have favorite Co-ops opportunities?
Can every student have favorite Co-ops opportunities?
NE is famous for Co-ops, I heard a lot of students got their job offers from co-ops. I'm thinking about there are thousands of students doing co-ops at the same time, can everyone have the co-op they like? otherwise they have to waste 6 months. How many students didn't find jobs after graduate?
It takes 5 year to graduate from NE, including 3 co-ops. Students have 3.5 year study in classroom. Will it fully prepare students for real jobs? How is the job performance of the NE students compare with students from those high ranking schools?
I went to their welcome day last week, so I can answer some of those questions.
1. Everybody has to apply to their co-op position like any other job (including an interview), and it's the company's choice whether or not to accept, but there is a mandatory first year class on how to be a successful job applicant (and the school will help you any way it can). Anyway, co-ops are not restricted to Boston - they can be anywhere in the country, or even overseas (if you have a reasonable grasp of the language of the country you're going to work at). If you don't get a good job in Boston, you can go to California, Chicago, London, Paris or anywhere else you can think of.
2. If you don't like your co-op, then that's just as valuable an experience as if you do because then you have time to change your career path before you graduate.
3. From what they said, it seems like most students find a job or get accepted into a graduate school. It's a great resume item, and some people are offered jobs from the company they worked for.
4. A co-op is a real job, and the expectations (and pay) are the same as for a full-time employee. If anything it prepares them better for a permanent job.
5. The people we spoke to said that the co-op experience is better than a summer internship because 6 months is enough time to actually learn the task and do it well.
Students must still take the equivalent of 8 semesters of classes to graduate just like any other college; it is just spread out over summer sessions to allow students to take UP TO but not necessarily 3 co-ops. Many programs do not even require co-ops and students may participate in other types of experiential learning opportunities to meet the experiential learning requirement. Typically students must obtain approval from their co-op advisor before applying for any co-op job and some co-ops may have a minimum GPA requirement.
Probably two of my classes have given me things to use in a real job. It's much more valuable to work 6 months and get real world experience than to take a couple more classes. That being said, in the 5 year program you are in classes the same amount as normal students at 4 year schools.
From personal experience of what's happening with my friends right now, everyone who tries to get a job, gets one. I have a few friends who don't have jobs yet and who didn't apply to graduate school, but they are 100% the type of people who didn't even start applying to jobs until a few weeks ago, only apply to one a week, skip all of the on-campus help (like job fairs, info sessions, etc), and otherwise do absolutely nothing to improve their job chances. Everyone, the majority, who actually puts in a reasonable amount of effort gets one from their great job experience. I got a job offer from both of my co-ops (I turned them down), and got a different job offer 8 months before graduation. All I did was follow the school's help: Went to a few info session from employers, applied using the school's job database, went to the career fair, and did on-campus interviews. Surprisingly simple.
Co-ops usually require having good connections with a LOT of employers. This tends to mean it's only at urban schools (that have a lot of jobs around them) and only schools that have strong advising programs. But they are becoming more common.
I think that some majors must be more difficult to find co-ops , at least paid. I know a father that has a daughter that majors in the music , and she had an unpaid co-op
^^Not always true. During the recession some employers cut coop positions in order to save career positions. Others increased their hiring of coops. Coops are similar to temporary positions and relatively less expensive i.e. coop positions do not usually come with health and retirement benefits.
S graduated last May in Chem E, and has been working contract jobs in the Boston area since he graduated. He has said that many employers seem to be using co-op students and contract employees for entry level work and he knows several other students who have not yet found permanent engineering positions. His first job after graduating was with a former co-op employer, and part of his job was training new co-op students.
