What Are you Looking For?

Hello Everyone,

We’ve officially survived a two weeks of classes. Give yourselves a round of applause, I know I barely made it.

Mark Matcho

As you might know the Career Fair is fast approaching, and I’m not really prepared yet. My resume is all set, but I haven’t started researching companies.

Today’s topic goes hand in hand with researching your top companies. The one thing I’ve been hearing from employers over the past week is that they want you to know what you want to do, whether it’s an internship or a co-op or a full time position.

So what do you want from a career fair? You can’t simply say anything, employers hate that, which I regretfully have done in the past. Because even though it’s true they know that co-ops take a lot of planning, and if you haven’t planned it out then you don’t know what you’re doing. All red flags for employers.

So today we’re talking about co-ops, what you need to know to decide whether you should go after a Co-op or an internship.

the most important thing is to plan out your four year schedule, make sure you can take two terms off of school to make it work. You can usually fit in a co-op and still graduate on time if you’re willing to overload a couple of times. DON’T skip doing a co-op because you’re in a rush to graduate. You’re going to be out of college for most of your life. If you graduate with less experience than your peers, your job search may be tougher and you might regret it.

http://calendar.county.simcoe.on.ca/partners/newteclib/HHLinks/CooperativeEd.htm

So why go through all that trouble with scheduling and do a Co-op?

Here are the top ten reasons why you should do a co-op:

1) Experience: having at least six months of experience will make employers eyes light up.

2) You’re not just an intern: there are a lot of companies out there that give interns work to do, and you learn a lot, but when you work for a company for 6-8 months you become an employee. People will forget you’re even an intern, and looking at a company from the inside as one of them is different than looking at a company as an outsider.

3) Discover your major: If you have any doubts about your major, working 6-8 months in a company related to your field will either make or break your major.

4) Discover your career: If you like or dislike the things you do you’ll be able to tell what you actually want to do with your major, you’ll discover the right career path for you.

6) Build relationships with co-worker: AKA Networking.

7)You get a break from college life: Everyone says your years in college are the best years of your life, but when finals week is approaching we don’t feel that way. Sometimes it’s nice to do something different and escape from the college routine.

7) Co-op and internship experience makes you more mature, more professionally polished and teaches you things beyond what you can learn in the classroom. You’ll appreciate your education more as a result, and you’re likely to perform better academically after having worked.

8) It’s easier to get a Co-op than an internship: Especially at WPI where most students don’t do co-ops. Employees would rather hire students willing to work for them for a longer period of time.

9) Learn essential job skills that Employers are looking for.

10)You can make some extra money: Although this shouldn’t be your priority, it’s nice to have some extra cash.

Hope this helped, for more check out the other CDC bloggers here. And be on the lookout for next weeks post!

Until next time,

Ahmad