I was pretty lucky as a high school student to be involved in a cooperative education program with IBM. The Co-op program was highly structured and made it easy for the students to find something that was educational and productive for the employer. When I went to college after the military, the same could not be said for the Co-op program at my school. The student really needed to make any good Co-op experience happen on their own. Again, I got lucky when I found a program with the Navy that allowed me to work and go to school.

But not all students get luck - they need help finding an appropriate position with an understanding employer in an environment that is conducive to learning, as well as benefiting the employer. Finding the right employer in the field that you are studying can be an even greater challenge. Schools like Kettering University are meeting that challenge by focusing on co-op education and weaving it into the school’s culture.

And it is a part of the culture from day one - cooperative education is available for all students - even the freshman class. It took me a year to find an appropriate position on my own, but the Kettering staff work their business network to help find that perfect opportunity. A rotation between co-op job and classes every three months keeps students from getting bored, as they are applying book knowledge to real-world experience. Kettering University’s commitment to engineering co-op programs helps students become more marketable and confident of their skills upon graduation.

It isn’t enough to have a mediocre academic program and an excellent Co-op program - the combination of excellence in and out of the classroom is important. In the US News and World Report’s America’s Best Colleges Guide for 2008 Kettering University was ranked “the #1 University in the nation for Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering”. When a student is looking to be a professional in the industrial engineering field, then a look at Kettering University is time well spent.