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If you have little or no work experience, then your prospective employer will focus on your education. Once you have more experience, then that is what matters

If you have little or no work experience, then your prospective employer will focus on your education. Once you have more experience, then that is what matters the most. Some advice: internships and engineering coops are really great ways to get experience in your field, while getting that magical degree.

Spartan-S63 10y ago
For sure. I have had a student assistantship for the past three and a half years, but I took a leave of absence from it over the summer to pursue a separate internship in industry (the student assistantship is in academia/federally funded research center). It was great seeing the difference between academia and industry and I'll be graduating in December with my BS in CS with a job lined up in industry. My student assistantship started the summer after my senior year of high school and I attribute some of it to my prior experience since my high school didn't provide much in the way of CS classes so I lacked a formal education but it wasn't a full time job either.
rustyfe 10y ago
Counteradvice: I do not think Co-Ops are a good idea. Tying yourself to a 3-4 year commitment is directly counter to what I consider the big advantage of work/study. I had friends who badly wanted to leave their Co-ops, but were bullied by advisers into not doing so. You aren't just padding your resume, you're also getting a feel for the different paths in your career you could pursue. I had 3 different Internships for 3 different companies, and although that added a decent amount of stress (an annual job hunt) to my college career, I 100% recommend it. I worked for a medium sized team at Georgia Tech's Research Institute, was the first hire at a startup, and worked DoD contracts for BAE, a defense contractor. Those are all extremely different, and I not only built a resume that served me well in a variety of interviews, but also learned things I absolutely did not want to do. However, your principal point, that work/study is a good idea, I wholeheartedly agree with.
- prefect42 10y ago
  At my Uni, engineering co-ops were just internships were you got paid, there was no commitment term. This is to differentiate from "traditional" internships, were you probably didn't get paid to work. But all this was 20 yrs ago, so things could have changed ;-)

Spartan-S63 10y ago

For sure. I have had a student assistantship for the past three and a half years, but I took a leave of absence from it over the summer to pursue a separate internship in industry (the student assistantship is in academia/federally funded research center). It was great seeing the difference between academia and industry and I'll be graduating in December with my BS in CS with a job lined up in industry. My student assistantship started the summer after my senior year of high school and I attribute some of it to my prior experience since my high school didn't provide much in the way of CS classes so I lacked a formal education but it wasn't a full time job either.

rustyfe 10y ago

Counteradvice: I do not think Co-Ops are a good idea. Tying yourself to a 3-4 year commitment is directly counter to what I consider the big advantage of work/study. I had friends who badly wanted to leave their Co-ops, but were bullied by advisers into not doing so. You aren't just padding your resume, you're also getting a feel for the different paths in your career you could pursue. I had 3 different Internships for 3 different companies, and although that added a decent amount of stress (an annual job hunt) to my college career, I 100% recommend it. I worked for a medium sized team at Georgia Tech's Research Institute, was the first hire at a startup, and worked DoD contracts for BAE, a defense contractor. Those are all extremely different, and I not only built a resume that served me well in a variety of interviews, but also learned things I absolutely did not want to do. However, your principal point, that work/study is a good idea, I wholeheartedly agree with.

prefect42 10y ago
At my Uni, engineering co-ops were just internships were you got paid, there was no commitment term. This is to differentiate from "traditional" internships, were you probably didn't get paid to work. But all this was 20 yrs ago, so things could have changed ;-)