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In contrast, if you graduate in 4 years, maybe doing (usually paid, but even unpaid) summer internships, you get more financial aid. 5 years after starting coll
by chrisbennet 16y ago
In contrast, if you graduate in 4 years, maybe doing (usually paid, but even unpaid) summer internships, you get more financial aid. 5 years after starting college, you are an engineer with 1 year of experience, and with a commensurate pay raise.
In this economy, it's not usual to graduate in 4 yrs and not be able to find work in your field - even with an engineering degree. The guy with the internship experience under his belt is going to have an advantage in this situation.
Employers these days don't want to invest in training "entry level" employees so getting experience (even if you have to pay for it) is sometimes the only way to get your foot in the door.
- yummyfajitas 16y agoIs 3 summer semesters of internship or summer research that different from 6 semesters? When I graduated from college (right after the dotcom bubble burst), I didn't observe any real gap between coop students and regular ones. The coop office also refused to publish any numbers (in spite of being asked repeatedly), so I suspect there wasn't much of one. Caveat: this was 9 years ago, and not at Waterloo. But even a few years ago (back when I had students), it seemed like the only people who couldn't find work were the people who weren't very good. Will internship experience help you if you bomb a technical interview?
- burgerbrain 16y agoOn the other hand, I had fulltime offers from my coop companies, before I even graduated. (also not at Waterloo)
- alexsb92 16y agoWell it probably won't help you if you bomb the interview, but at the same time, chances of bombing the interview are considerably lowered, since by the end of the degree we would go through 30 if not even more interviews, so you should have a feel for the type of questions they ask.