Co-operative Education

• Be a matriculated Middlesex College student in the curriculum that corresponds to the co-op class for which you would like to register.
• Meet a member of the Civic Engagement and Community Partnerships staff (College Center, 3rd Floor) and file an application for the program.
• Be in good academic standing with at least a 2.0 GPA.
• Have completed the necessary prerequisite courses or have received permission to enroll in the course from your department’s chairperson.

Before you can register for a co-op class, your registration must be stamped and approved by both Civic Engagement and Community Partnerships and by your department. Civic Engagement and Community Partnerships has paperwork for you to complete verifying that you have been offered a co-op that will allow you to apply the skills you have learned in the classroom out on the job. Make an appointment to meet with Civic Engagement and Community Partnerships.

Employers who participate in the co-operative program assume the following responsibilities:

• Assist the student with the development of five job related learning objectives.
• Provide a minimum of 180 hours of work during the semester (approximately 13 hours/week).
• Allow site visits by a Civic Engagement and Community Partnerships staff member.
• Complete a mid-semester progress report.
• Rate the learning objectives at the end of the semester.

Co-op participation allows employers to help meet their workforce needs by:

• Bringing in talented students to contribute to the organization with work, ideas and new energy.
• Providing an effective, low risk evaluation and training ground for prospective full-time employees.
• Participating in and influencing the educational process.
• Achieving greater average retention rates among permanent employees recruited and hired through co-op programs.
• (upon the student’s graduation) Having an opportunity to hire a full-time, prescreened employee who fits your needs and is already familiar with the needs of your organization.

• Co-operative Education Site Agreement Form

1. Take the Co-operative Education Site Agreement Form to the supervisor of your co-op experience, have them fill it out and bring that form with you to step 2. Attach a description of the co-op position.
2. Meet with your academic department chair to have the co-op approved as appropriate for your major/the co-op course for which you are registering. The role of the chair in this process is to ensure that your co-op will extend your classroom learning by allowing you to apply what you’ve studied into a real world application. Your chair will sign the form (middle, front page) if the co-op is appropriate academically.
3. Bring the completed form back to Civic Engagement and Community Partnerships. We will register you for the co-op course at that time.

Both co-op and internships are forms of on-the-job learning that provide students with the opportunity to gain experience, apply knowledge learned in the classroom to real-world situations, and acquire key skills required to enter into a particular career field. Students can use these experiences to determine if they have an interest in a particular career and to create a network of contacts.

Cooperative Education/Field Experience:

• Is a category of experiential learning that uses jobs, internships or volunteer work as the basis of extending classroom learning into hands-on application in a real-world setting.
• Students earn academic credit for the field experience by registering for and completing the co-op field experience course in your major (after satisfying all pre-requisites and obtaining all required signatures. The co-op is completed during one semester.
• Your co-op field experience can be your current position provided that it: 1) is relevant to your major, 2) gives you the opportunity to do more than the job you are already being paid to do, and 3) is approved by the chairperson of your academic department as academically appropriate.
• You can also use an internship position as your co-op field experience provided it meets all of the requirements explained above and allows you to attend the bi-weekly seminar class.
• Students and the supervisor at the site develop learning objectives against which the student’s performance is evaluated as part of the co-op course grade.
• It can be full-time or part-time but must provide a minimum of 180 hours of field experience within the semester and allow you to attend the bi-weekly seminar class on Tuesday evenings.

Internship:

• Some internship opportunities are part of a formal program hosted by an employer or organization that includes other activities in addition to work experience, perhaps including professional development workshops, conferences or opportunities to network.
• Often the employer sets the entry requirements for the internship in terms of years of education completed or major field of study.
• Application deadlines can be approximately 6 months before the start of the internship. Look to apply in October/November for summer internships in a formal program
• Most internships are full-time for the semester and are often paid, either by stipend or an hourly rate. Employers sometimes offer permanent jobs to successful interns, however that is not always the case … but it’s still a good idea to approach the internship as if every day is a job interview.