Co-Op College Programs The Classroom Can’t Teach You Everything.note

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Co-Op College Programs: The

Classroom Can’t Teach You

Everything

By Jane Parent

CO-OP COLLEGE PROGRAMS:

CHANGING HOW WE LOOK AT COLLEGE

Co-operative education, or co-op. If you’re like me and you went to a traditional four year

college, you may not have heard of it. Before our oldest son started the college tour

process, I had no clue about co-op education programs in college. But now I’m a big

advocate. The short explanation is that co-operative education combines classroom and

“real world” experience. Our oldest son’s co-op experience has completely changed the

way we look at college.

When he was in high school, it’s fair to say he wasn’t much of a student. Oh, he was

– I think he missed two questions on the ACT – but he just by

grades. He didn’t really care about getting an A in chemistry, or acing that “Heart of

Darkness” quiz. School was drudgery, an agonizing repetition of dumb boring stuff that he

had to do, punctuated only occasionally by moments of genuine enthusiasm.

Watching him shuffle off glumly into the grey Cleveland morning to school every day was

anxiety-producing. I loved school – why didn’t he? He trudged through high school, weary

of the tests and homework that never seemed to end. On the car ride home one day, he

turned to me and asked “When does it get easier? Is college just another four years of

this?” Great – four more year of what he already hated. Who wants to pay a king’s ransom

to send that attitude to college?

WHAT IS A CO-OP PROGRAM?

plent

y smart wasn’t motivated

When it came time to look at colleges, he figured he liked math so maybe he’d look into

. So we took him on a bunch of campus tours and sat through lots of

engineering presentations. He would sit slumped in his chair, eyes half-closed, listening to

students at different universities go on about their various research opportunities and

professor-supervised studies. He was bored, bored, bored. “Maybe a ,” we

thought.

On a whim, we toured a university with a mandatory co-op education program. The

presenter explained that under their co-op college programs, engineering students earn a

four-year degree in five years, and alternate back and forth between semesters studying

in the classroom, and working in their chosen career field in jobs which integrate the

concepts they are learning in the classroom. Students gain a full year of work experience

in their career fields before graduation, and get to “test drive” their degrees to make sure

that’s really what they want to do, while earning thousands of dollars to help finance their

degree. “And whenever you start to feel mentally burned out at the end of a semester, you

know that you’re going to shift gears soon into co-op, and vice versa,” she noted.

“Students tell us they feel fresher mentally because they are continually moving back and

forth.”

That was the moment right there. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him sit up and lean

forward, listening to every word. A break from the monotony of the classroom, and active

hands-on learning? Finally – something connected.

CO-OP EDUCATION PROGRAMS

Four years later, he is an entirely different student. So far, he’s had three different

semester-long co-ops learning and living what a mechanical engineer actually does. His

longest co-op has been at the largest steel mill in the country which produces steel 24/7 –

a great experience for a mechanical engineer, as things have to be maintained constantly

to keep production lines from breaking down. He gets how the theoretical concepts he

learned in (terrifyingly-named) classes such as Heat Transfer and Fluid Dynamics apply in

everyday scenarios. Those concepts make sense now in a way they didn’t on a white

board.

e

ngineering

gap year

Then there are the skills that you won’t learn in a classroom. Collaborating with engineers

thirty years older than he. Working closely with veteran hourly employees who call him

“College Boy” while they teach him all the practical stuff professors don’t (“You won’t

learn this in class – THIS is the best way to wire a semiconductor.”). Presenting his

projects before senior management at a Fortune 500 company. Currently, he’s managing

a team of subcontractors on a $250,000 project.

Along the way, he’s learned how to weld, become a certified crane operator, and learned

how to take apart a motor and a circuit board. He’s also learned some of those “soft skills”

important to employers, such as showing up for work on time, working on a team, meeting

deadlines, and receiving criticism. Somewhere in his first co-op, he discovered that he

loved working and – get this – really liked earning money. When it comes to competing for

jobs after graduation, he will have the advantage of an entire year of experience.

Academics have taken on new significance to him. He’s now willing to spend hours

studying crushing coursework, mastering Differential Equations and some horrible class

called Kinematics because he understands why an engineer needs to know it. He has

some skin in the game. He is intentional with his course selections, and wants to use his

final year electives to take more circuitry courses, because he has seen on co-op how

helpful that knowledge would be. From a kid who almost failed his second semester

senior year of high school, now he has a 3.9 GPA. He is thriving.

The changes we have noticed in him are a continual source of wonderment. The maturity,

the self-sufficiency, the work ethic. The kid who needed dynamite to blast him out of bed

in high school is now up at 5:30 a.m. every day, zipped into coveralls, and ready for

whatever problem-solving the day will bring.

He’s learned what it’s like to work a long, physically demanding day. And he’s learned the

satisfaction of getting paid for it. His soft mama’s boy hands have toughened into a man’s

hands with callouses and grease under his nails. He appreciates now that going to college

is a privilege, and that some of those hourly union employees he works with (who don’t

have a college degree) are just as smart as he is. It’s opened his eyes to the real world in

ways that four years on a leafy quad with football Saturdays, and summers spent back at

home caddying or mowing lawns, simply could not have.

Co-op definitely isn’t a traditional college experience, and it isn’t right for everyone. But in

our experience, the benefits far outweigh the negatives. All three of our kids chose to

attend colleges with co-op education programs. Maybe co-op is the right fit for your

student, too.