Best parctices for Co-Ops
Best parctices for Co-Ops
(OP)
We are excited to finally be getting some Co-Ops in our engineering department. We are getting prepared with some assignments for them and want this to be a good experience for both of us. What is the advice of everyone here on the best practices for effectively using Co-Ops? I'd like to hear both side of the stories from the engineer and the Co-Op.





RE: Best parctices for Co-Ops
2. Supervise/Mentor them.
3. Try not to treat them just as cheap labor.
4. Giving them a project or element of a project they have 'ownership' of can be a good idea.
5. As well as 'technical' work, we'd often try to give them some other tasks to broaden their horizons. For instance my boss used to have them write a 'best known practice' or similar on something they learnt how to do for the benefit of future interns (or in some cases more than just interns!).
I'm sorry to say that after a few rotations on interns the novelty of trying to get them up to speed, mentoring them and then cleaning up the messes most of them left got old. I'm kind of glad we don't have many anymore. However, part of the issue was management tended to treat them like cheap labor.
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: Best parctices for Co-Ops
Maybe some easy test, or spend the summer doing an analysis.
Trick them into thinking working for you company is what they want.
RE: Best parctices for Co-Ops
Onde of the funnier things is how the recruitment system fails to pick the 'best' (as determined by their colleagues) co-ops for permananent positions.
My advice would be to give them a fair amount of freedom. The self-starters will stand out, and trust me, if you are going to recruit them and work with them for 3 years you want self starters.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: Best parctices for Co-Ops
1. Their first assignment should be meeting as many people in the company as possible, sitting down with them and finding out, 1. What is their job function. 2. Who they report too. Those are required, you can also have them find out what skills the other employees have, and what their title is. The skills can be handy, because if a co-op needs to learn something, they can just go talk to this person, without bugging you first and having to tell them where to go!
2. Get your co-op as hands on as possible. I learned the most with the techs. MAKE SURE YOUR TECH HAS A GOOD ATTITUDE. Nasty techs who resent "college kids" don't help.
3. It's real easy to have co-ops sit nicely for a week while you're busy and can't think of anything for them to do. It's ok, it happens, just give them assignments 1 or 2 when that happens.
Hope this helps, I'll post more as I think of them.
RE: Best parctices for Co-Ops
Give them jobs that are aligned with that goal.
Give them assistance and mentoring. (we see too many co-ops and interns asking questions here on Eng-Tips when they should be asking their co-op mentor)
Explain why the job you have given them is necessary and important.
RE: Best parctices for Co-Ops
1) Tasks we find really tedious, the good ones can wring some learning out of,
2) They're cheaper than us, and
3) We hire and train the most promising ones.
Our new co-ops support larger teams working on larger jobs, where there is a wider diversity of tasks they're capable of doing. We start them off small, with well-defined, well-explained tasks, and then give them more as they learn. The more senior ones, returning for a 2nd term, get assigned to help out on multiple, smaller projects. This gives them more exposure to the breadth of what we do, more people to learn from, etc.
We do try to get them out in the shop, to compare drawings against what's been constructed etc.- it's very valuable experience for them, and good for us too because they sometimes see things that people who have been wearing the project goggles for several months tend to miss- as long as they're not counted on as the sole source of checking!
RE: Best parctices for Co-Ops
Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
RE: Best parctices for Co-Ops
Students (co-ops, etc) don't seem to cost anything to the departments into which they are placed. So they are "free", even though someone pays them. That means they are able to work on those (skunk works) projects that may or not pay off.
Give them a real challenge that they may complete or fail.
I did a degree course where everyone had to be sponsored and do a year with their sponsoring company first. We met up for seminars at the university a couple of times during that year. Most of the others were sweeping floors. Very bad.
- Steve
LinkedIn
RE: Best parctices for Co-Ops
One thing I know we are going to emphasize is that we won't give them any work that we would not be doing ourselves if they were not there.
They will get some time on the floor in each department. Hopefully spread out between semesters.
RE: Best parctices for Co-Ops
RE: Best parctices for Co-Ops
In my last few companies, in the last few years, with fewer engineers in each department, the co-op programs were still going on.
The problem became finding time for mentorship. The few engineers left didn't have time to properly mentor the co-ops, so they were left to their own accord, no supervision, minimal projects, less support, no feedback, etc....
Really didn't do them justice, so be sure your team has the time to put into it.
______________________________________________________________________________
This is normally the space where people post something insightful.
RE: Best parctices for Co-Ops
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: Best parctices for Co-Ops
It also made school more enjoyable afterwards because I felt I was learning real world skills and helped everything come together.
Looking back on it, my boss looked over my work anyway, so I may have saved him some time, but it was probably more of an audition for future employment with little risk to the company.
RE: Best parctices for Co-Ops
RE: Best parctices for Co-Ops
Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
RE: Best parctices for Co-Ops
I recommend putting the co-ops into a job that is very hands on dealing with the product everyday, whether it is construction, testing, etc. Make sure they get a good understanding with what they are dealing with, what the current problems are and ask how they can improve on it.
When I started in 08' all I did was setup/run various tests for product X. I worked side by side with the technicians and guys out in the shop so I understood how it was built and how our company goes about testing it. Nowadays I am responsible for submitting test plans for product X and because I worked in the test cells previously I know exactly what the technicians need and how long a test will take to complete.
Being heavily involved with Baja SAE helped tremendously as many times I would help out the shop with construction if I needed to push a prototype part through quickly. Due to my manufacturing background I have an easy time working with the shop guys, something that some of the new fulltime hires after the economic crash struggle to do.
Then there are times when you get the real sh*tty jobs that nobody else wants to do. It would be silly for an expensive engineer to do lame job X, so inevitable co-ops generally get those jobs which I completely understand. What they make out of the situation generally indicates their personality :)
RE: Best parctices for Co-Ops
We've had a few prima donna interns that thought certain tasks were below them, such as creating detailed assembly instructions. On at least one occasion I called their bluff, gave them something 'fun & challenging' to do and they were completely out of their depth.
The reality is that there are a limited number of fun and interesting tasks amongst all the essential but mundane stuff that has to be done by someone. I can't see giving the interns all the 'fun stuff' and sticking myself with all the mundane stuff. I don't enjoy all of my work, why should the intern?
I already mentioned about not treating them just like cheap labor, but for most organizations I can't buy into the other extreme of only giving them fun/interesting... stuff.
In fact, to do so may well be giving them a false impression of the real world and arguably giving them a false impression.
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: Best parctices for Co-Ops
And yes, I used to photocopy all my reports, before there were feeders, and collaters. (and I walked to school uphill both ways).
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: Best parctices for Co-Ops
Back in the days when fax machines were in heavy use, a fax wasn't going through, and I'd tried about ten times- and my customer had arrived. I asked our receptionist at the time to send the fax for me, and she replied, "I'm not your darn secretary!".
So: perhaps this explains why co-op engineers get some secretarial work to do from time to time?!
I do plenty of it myself, along with a long list of other craptastic tasks. A co-op who turns up their nose at a little of this kind of stuff is demonstrating to me that they're a prima donna we don't want on our staff.
RE: Best parctices for Co-Ops
The first was tedius, but the second was maddening. At least I left the first one on good terms with everyone; the second one got grimmer and grimmer until the end.
RE: Best parctices for Co-Ops
Walking around the site tracking down missing 40 ft trailers.
Working in a time and motions group that was not allowed to time stuff, all times were estimated. No computers, the times were written in pencil and added up by hand.
Six weeks working on an assembly line that was on strike.
Manning the payroll counter after a stuffup with the payroll (basically arranging loans over the counter to tide people over)
Oddly enough, although those have little to do with designing cars, they did teach me useful things. The Industrial Engineering group actually asked me to work another rotation there, one of the strangest compliments I have ever had, as I loathed the work.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: Best parctices for Co-Ops
1. Insure that the mentor is one that loves to teach. Someone that is accessible, funny, etc.
2. Challenge them in applying their school work, give them tasks like calculations, energy modeling using software, etc..
3. Have them create some sort of needed database for the department - something tangible they can show in their resume and profitable for the company. Use their brain, not just give them Autocad work.
4. Take them to the meetings.
5. Give them a task requiring: Observation, research, analysis, determination, recommendation - AND write a consice report.
6. Give tham a going away gift for their cheap labor.
7. Give them an award for the database they created, etc.
8. Give them a letter of recommendation as a reference for their future job seeking.
9. Show them how to make a fee proposal, establish a drawing list and task description, specfication writing, meeting time, survey, coordination times, QA/QC, etc.
10. Teach them briefly the legal aspect of your work, liabilities, etc.
11. Teach them how and where to find information quickly, how to use databse efficiently.
12. Teach them how to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant information on drawings.
13. See to it that they have fun while working for you. Go have a beer with them on happy hour (and pick up the tab for them).
I have had many interns, and I must say that I enjoyed having them around me, they bring such a life and a new vision (sometimes wrong vision but it's OK) that is not influenced by repetitive tasks of our environment.
In return, I think they enjoyed being around me. I even had an invitation to an intern's wedding (even though he was long gone), and for me, that is a satisfaction in itself.
Interns show you more appreciation than your boss.