Cooperative Education
Co-op is central to the College of Engineering undergraduate program and the Northeastern experience!
The cooperative education program for engineering students has been designed to assist students to:
- Clarify short and long range personal, educational, and career goals
- Explore jobs in engineering or in other fields to confirm engineering as a career choice
- Connect what you are studying in school to your work by applying what you learn in school to what you do at work
- Test your values, interests, abilities and lifestyles against the realities of an engineering career
- Develop job-finding, job-survival, and career advancement skills
- Develop skills, abilities, and experience at both the technical and professional level in engineering
- Enhance the relevance of academic study and increase educational motivation by applying theory to practice in the world of work
- Enhance your understanding and appreciation of the world of work
- Strengthen a developing professional engineering identity by working with engineers as role models
- Avoid reality shock through gradual preparation for the transition from the student role to the graduate engineer role
- Develop job opportunities for after graduation by providing useful employer contacts, by testing employment choices as an undergraduate, and by gaining marketable experience
- Meet financial responsibilities
The cooperative education program has been designed also to:
- Promote collegiality between engineering education and the professional engineering community by actively involving engineering professionals in the educational experience of engineering students while on co-op
- Help employers to meet routine or special employment needs with high quality employees
- Assist employers to recruit graduates
- Enhance the relationship between Northeastern University and the community.
