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A. Cooperative Education: A Definition
Cooperative Education is defined as the integration of classroom study and full-time alternating practical work
experience in an organized program under which students alternate periods of attendance at college with periods
of employment in industry, business, or government. The employment constitutes as regular, continuing, and essential
element in the educational process, and some minimum amount of employment and minimum standard of performance are
included in the requirements for a degree. The plan requires that the student’s employment be related to some phase
of the field of study in which the student is engaged, and that it be diversified in order to afford a spread of
experience. It requires further that the work shall increase in difficulty and responsibility as the student progresses
through the college curriculum, and in general shall parallel as closely as possible and progress through the academic
phases of the student’s education.
Specific components of The College of Engineering’s Cooperative Education Program include:
An agreement between the University, the student, and the employer concerning the goals and operation of the program.
- Work experience related to the student’s academic field of study and career goals.
A schedule of academic study and work structured to further the student’s education and employability.
Work experience which is supervised, evaluated, and paid.
- Conformity with federal, state, and local laws on employment and compensation.
B. Cooperative Education: Advantages to the Student
Since this is a handbook for both students and employers, let us first look at the advantages of the Co-op Program to the student.
A co-op assignment is essentially an extension of school wherein the student is exposed to current problems facing industry or
government. These problems naturally involve the application of the theory of the classroom; thus, the students find more meaning
and reality in their academic studies. Many co-op students have stated that they gained valuable insights while on work assignment
that simply are not taught in the classroom.
The Program orients the student to the real world of engineering by providing contact with professionals in the student’s field of
interest. It eliminates the academic isolation which is found on the college campus.
An opportunity is provided to test the student's interest and aptitude. Performance is stimulated by skills learned on the job and
inevitably improves when goals in the classroom are identified with the work experience. The alternation of work and study engenders
a desire to learn, or stated another way, provides increased educational motivation.
Alternation of the work period with the classroom also provides the students with a welcome change of pace. Industry may be viewed as a
University without walls which provides less structured learning and gives the student a breath of fresh air.
The work experience provides the student with an opportunity to gain an understanding of people and develop human relations skills. The
idealistic students are exposed to an adult-oriented world of work and are thus provided with an opportunity to broaden their outlook and
modify their mode of behavior so as to best fit into that adult world. The demands of full-time employment, such as punctuality, cooperation,
responsibility, contributing within a team, and accountability help to develop in the co-op student a sense of sound
judgment, confidence,
and overall acceleration of their process of maturing.
If the work assignment is involving relocating or securing housing and living in a new environment provides a valuable learning experience. This will
be contrasted with living at home or on the campus in a dormitory, the latter of which is not a “real life” situation. An out of town assignment
also provides the student with an opportunity to travel and live in a different part of the country.
The student will have gained at least a full year of professional experience by the time of graduation. This is advantageous in a number of ways:
Contact is made with a potential employer who, if satisfied with the student’s performance, will possibly extend a permanent job offer upon
graduation. Approximately 50 to 70 percent of our co-op students are employed by companies participating in the College of Engineering’s Co-op
Program.
The student has had first-hand opportunities to view a particular segment of industry or government, and is able to determine if this field is
appropriate, or if employment in another field may be a better match.
Experience has shown that co-op students have learned through their work experience what type of questions to ask in a job interview, so that
they usually are more satisfied in their first full-time job than non co-op students.
Co-op students are in greater demand and receive higher starting salaries than non co-op students.
Students have had an opportunity to discover their strong points and weaknesses. They can take advantage of the strong points and correct
the weaknesses.
Once a student starts a work experience, cooperative education provides a means of earning money to cover a significant portion of college expenses.
While amounts differ with each employer, during the first work period a typical employer will pay the student approximately 60 percent of the
starting salary of an entry-level engineer. Some employers base the pay on the number of credit hours the student has earned. Many provide
benefits in addition to a salary. The salaries usually increase with subsequent work periods. However, all employers have their own company
policies regarding pay rates, increases, and benefits.
While the University views the financial returns of the Program as secondary in importance, it recognizes that if these funds were not available
many students would be financially unable to complete their college education.
C. Cooperative Education: Advantages to the Employer
The Cooperative Education Program is a two-way street. While providing advantages to the student, it also has advantages for the employer.
Some of the more outstanding are:
Employers have the opportunity to train promising young students in the ways of their firms with an eye toward permanent employment of the
students after graduation. Studies have shown that there is a high retention of cooperative students in the organization where they worked
and trained as students. The great advantage to the employer is the opportunity to carefully select young employees and to observe them at
work over a period of two or more years before giving consideration to hiring the student permanently.
Cooperative Education provides employers with a regular flow of qualified talent which is available to them year round. A team of co-op
students provides at least one person on the job at all times. This has obvious advantages over part-time or summer employment of students.
In addition, recruiting of qualified professional employees has proven quite expensive for many companies in recent years. The Cooperative
Education Program provides the employer with an interested, potentially permanent employee who is being formally educated along the lines of
a discipline necessary for the job in which the person is in training.
Student participants can free high-salaried workers from confining but necessary tasks, thus giving the full-time professional staff more time
to devote to creative work for which they are best qualified. This does not mean to imply that the co-op student is to be used for meaningless
tasks. It does mean to imply that although we as a country are highly developed technically and scientifically, generally all people still begin
at the bottom. Or to rephrase an adage, “The elevator to success is not running; please take the stairs.”
D. Cooperative Education: The Role of the University
If the Cooperative Education Program is a two-way street, then the University, by way of the Co-op Office, provides the traffic control on
that street. The rules and regulations as set forth in this handbook are the outgrowth of experience gained since the inception of Cooperative
Education at The University of Akron in 1914.
E. Cooperative Education: Its Origin
Cooperative Education was founded in the United States at the University of Cincinnati in 1906 through the pioneering efforts and leadership
of an engineering faculty member (later dean) named Herman Schneider. This new and distinctly American system of education was called the
“Cooperative Plan”, because it required the cooperation of both educators and employers to form a comprehensive educational program which would
successfully bridge the gap between the academic environment and the work environment.
The cooperative plan evolved from two basic observations about education made by Professor Schneider form his own practical engineering and teaching experience:
Classroom education can never hope to teach all the elements of knowledge required for a successful career in any profession. Practical on-the-job
experience with successful professionals in the field is a necessary supplement to classroom instruction.
Since the high cost of education is a paramount problem in this country, most students must work part-time while attending classes in order to earn a
portion of the cost of their college education. With very few exceptions, these part-time jobs are not related to their career objectives and have
little transfer value to the educational program of the students.
Schneider was a graduate of Lehigh University who had several years of practical engineering experience before entering his teaching career.
He felt engineering education programs were inadequate; in that they failed to demonstrate, by means of direct observation and experience,
the practical applications of the principles taught.
From a study of records of Lehigh graduates, Schneider found that those who showed the highest engineering ability soon after graduation were
those who had worked summers and part-time while in college. Those observations led him to the creation of a new concept in education--regularly
scheduled employment in the student's major field while in college--thus combining the theoretical and the practical.
In 1903, Schneider joined the staff of The University of Cincinnati as Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering. He immediately began trying to
interest industrial executives and school officials in his new plan. He received support from interested industrialists, who realized the lack
of practical knowledge in engineering graduates, and who felt that it was time to do something about it. He was also successful in selling his
idea to the university administration and a previously skeptical faculty.
The first students--12 mechanical, 12 electrical, and 3 chemical engineers--to work in a cooperative education program started in September of
1906, on a schedule of two weeks of work alternating with two weeks of school. They entered into a simple written agreement to abide by the
rules of both the industry and the university, and each student's father guaranteed faithful fulfillment of the agreement. The original simple
contract was soon dropped in favor of a more elastic and informal understanding between the parties concerned.
The story of the inception of the cooperative plan forms one of the most fascinating chapters in the history of engineering education. From small
beginnings at Cincinnati, the of the Co-op Program is attested to in that approximately seventy to eighty percent of the qualified engineering
students have elected to enroll in the Program.
The Co-op Program at The University of Akron is accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology.
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