Co-op Opportunities
Put your Classroom knowledge to work
Do you want to put the skills and knowledge you develop in the classroom to work in real world situations and gain valuable employment experience before you graduate? Do you want to earn cash and academic credit while you work? Then Cooperative Education is for you!
UDM's Cooperative Education (Co-op) program gives you the opportunity to augment your academic courses with placements or assignments of paid employment in business, industry, and government. It's considered cutting edge in some schools, but UDM's been doing it since 1911. If you already have a clear idea of the career you want to pursue, co-op provides a chance to obtain practical work experience before graduation. If you're unsure about your career, co-op can be a tool for discovery, as well as an opportunity to test your interests, aptitudes, and abilities. The money you earn can be used to defer some of your college expenses. Many students often become full-time employees of the companies where they did their co-op work.
Assignments
Cooperative education assignments are normally four months in length and start at the beginning of January, May, and September. Though most assignments are "ALTERNATING"—meaning participating students alternate full-time terms of class work with terms of full-time co-op assignments, students in some majors may combine their studies with part-time career related work on a "PARALLEL" co-op arrangement. The preceeding links describe co-op opportunities and student responsibilities in detail.
Eligibility
Students in the Bachelor of Architecture, Bachelor of Science in Nursing or designated Bachelor of Engineering programs must participate in the cooperative education program as part of their graduation requirements and maintain an overall G.P.A. of at least 2.0 to be eligible.
All other undergraduate, transfer, and graduate students at UDM are encouraged to participate in the co-op program as well, and must maintain an overall G.P.A. of 2.5 or above.
Enrollment Requirements
Students wishing to participate in the co-op program must first take the Cooperative Education Preparation course (CEC 300). This one-credit, tuition-free class prepares students for co-op work and helps them develop a greater understanding of how their own interests, skills, and values are used in the process of successful career planning and decision making. There is also a $600 co-op participation fee for alternating assignments and $300 co-op participation fee for parallel assignments.
Co-op Portfolio Credit
Many transfer and returning adult students have already spent considerable time in the workplace and have experience that could be considered comparable to the co-op experience. These students have the option of submitting a "co-op portfolio" to document these experiences for consideration to fulfill the co-op requirement.
More Information
For more information about the co-op program, contact the Career Education Center at (313) 993-1017 or careerlink@udmercy.edu.
