The University of Toledo

Date: Jun 28 2011
Major: Computer Engineering (This Major's Salary over time)
My favorite thing about Toledo is the Cooperative education program. Engineering students are required to do 3 semesters of internships (We call them co-ops) to graduate. Going to work at an actual company for 3 semesters is a tremendous opportunity. Not only do you get to make actual money (I was paid $18.60 an hour) you get real world experience in you career field. It's not like working at Burger King for minimum wage to make some disposable income. I was working in a full time software engineering position along engineers with decades of experience in the filed. The code I wrote made it into the final production version of out software and is being used all over the world. I also had the opportunity to do a lot of presentations which helped my public speaking skill immensely.

Finding a Coop is not very difficult. The most important thing is to stay open to the different options you will get along the way. The #1 mistake students make is they want to co-op with 1 and only 1 company and will not accept a job offer from anyone else. Another mistake students make is they expect the Career Management Office (CMO) to find them a Co-op and do not look for anything themselves. The CMO will help you find opportunities but it's still the student's responsibility to send out resumes and go to interviews.