Careers & Coop Ops

The College of Engineering has two full-time professional career specialists in-house who are devoted exclusively to working with engineering students.

This team consists of a Career Advisor and a Field Experience Coordinator, both with expertise in relating academic content to career options and the ability to act as consultants on issues pertaining to student placement, careers, employers and the workplace.

The College of Engineering Career Advisor, Mr. Clarkson Edwards, provides one-on-one coaching and advice to undergraduate and graduate students on job search protocols. In addition, employers are brought on campus throughout the year to sponsor presentations on their companies as well as to interview and recruit graduating students. Follow-up surveys among our graduates indicate that students who actively use all of the available career services obtain better jobs, faster, and make better choices than students who do not.

The Field Experience Coordinator, works with employers, faculty and students to coordinate students' practical experiences in industry. They are available to all undergraduate students and assists them in acquiring progressively more responsible part-time, summer, co-op, volunteer and service learning experiences on and off campus.

The co-op program is designed to give students the opportunity to obtain real engineering work experience before graduation. The co-op program is optional for engineering students although highly recommended. Students who elect to do a co-op at an engineering company leave UMass, anywhere from a summer to twelve months, and are paid by the company they work for. After completing the co-op, students return to campus to complete their degree programs.

Co-op jobs have proven to be an excellent way for students to work in teams with talented engineers as well as to become more certain of what engineers do. Some students take more than one co-op during their years at UMass. Many seniors receive permanent job offers from the same companies that hired them as co-ops.

Companies that offer co-op jobs to our students include General Electric, Pratt and Whitney, IBM, Microsoft, Gillette, Arthur Andersen, Lotus Development Corporation, Motorola, and Polaroid to name just a few.

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