Students showcase their co-op experience
Thirty-two Concordia co-operative education students from across all Faculties took over the main floor of the John Molson School of Business Building. Their mission? To share their co-operative experience with some 200 attendees of the Student Showcase portion of the Co-op Awards of Recognition Event.
Each prepared a poster exhibit outlining their work terms and answered questions about their work, their employers, and what they learned about themselves and their careers.
A work term is a 12-to-17-week paid experience related to a student’s academic program. The Institute for Co-operative Education (Co-op) matches students with employers in jobs that allow them to put their academics to work, and then bring their experience back to the classroom. Co-op employers gain from the exercise as well, with new ideas, enthusiasm and energy to refresh the workplace.
Co-op students get the added benefit of experience in the workplace, an edge that might help them decide if they're in the right program for the long term.
Software engineering student Adam Harrison said, “There’s no better way to get immersed in professional-level projects than working in the relevant industry. First I worked in commercial-level gaming, then hardware-design testing.
"The people were really interesting. I made great contacts and I found out something important about my working style… I’m definitely not a 9-to-5 kind of person, and I don’t like commuting. Right now I’m involved in a natural language processing research project, and in the future I plan to start my own business.”
Rene Charbonneau thinks the best thing about being on a work term is “putting in a lot of work and seeing the results that you get from it.” The management information systems student developed an Air Canada mobile booking application that people all around Canada will be able to use.
Gerry Hughes, director of the institute, summed it up: “We are very proud of all of our Co-op students and this showcase highlights some excellent examples of student accomplishments. The collaborative support and working relationships we enjoy with a wide range of organizations allows us to provide our students with interesting and diversified experiential learning opportunities.”
And from the students’ view, perhaps prospective mechanical engineer Matthew-Maximo Vizcaino said it best. “You know what? My career’s not that far away.”
Watch the video:
Related link:
• Institute for Co-operative Education