Cooperative Education

The Process

Getting Ready

  • Take one-credit Professional Development course or preparation workshops, depending on major, in freshman or sophomore year.
  • Learn about careers.
  • Develop professional resumes.
  • Learn how to research companies.
  • Prepare for interviews.
  • Hear from upperclassmen in major.

Planning a Co-op

  • Initiate a meeting with assigned Cooperative Education Faculty Coordinator within first few weeks of semester to learn about important dates for workshops, orientations, and resume deadlines. Students are responsible for fulfilling their program's co-op requirements.
  • Discuss: 

    - Interests both in and outside major,
    - Prior work history and employer evaluations,
    - Short-term and long term-goals, plus developmental steps,
    - Personal qualifications: skills, talents, strengths,
    - Development and/or revision of a resume,
    - Available co-op positions and experiential opportunities,
    - Program's referral and cross-referral process.
  • Follow program's specific guidelines for required meetings, resume preparation, and deadlines. Log onto myNEU Cool (Co-op Opportunities On Line) for co-op support from start to finish.

Co-op Options

  • Student-developed positions: students who find their own jobs must submit documentation and contact information to their co-op faculty coordinator for approval. 

  • Unpaid part-time employment: often the best way for students to gain experience and develop contacts and mentors in fields such as the arts and entertainment industry. 

  • Experiential projects: proposals for experiential projects are considered individually and are must be approved and assessed by the faculty coordinator.

Special Programs

  • Community Service Learning Project
  • Walt Disney World College Program
  • Washington D.C. Program

After the Co-op

  • Meet with co-op faculty coordinator.
  • Reflect on co-op experience by one of the following:
    - Writing a paper,
    - Turning in a journal,
    - Discussing the experience with coordinator,
    - Participating in a reflection seminar or online discussion group,
    - Giving a presentation to a class
  • Reflection helps students:
    - Assess what was learned on co-op about their academic subject area, an industry, and themselves,
    - Analyze their experience from different points of view,
    - Compare and contrast their experience to other students',
    - Understand how the experience fits into the big picture of their education,
    - Establish connections between the world of work and the world of academia,
    - Discover new areas of interest to pursue experientially and academically,
    - Reassess professional and academic goals.