Co-op Policy

Co-operative Education Courses

CS 2250, CS 4250, CS 6250

The purpose of co-operative education is to give academic credit for legitimate learning acquired on the job.
There is a University-wide co-operative education program which operates out of the Career Center. Students receive the following benefits from taking a co-operative education class:

  • Credit as an elective for graduation, or to maintain the minimum registration necessary to qualify as a full-time student (say for a scholarship) while working part-time.
  • Eligibility to fill internships with those companies which require co-operative education enrollment of their interns.
  • A visible signal on their transcripts indicating that they had professional work experience during the time they were students.
  • Ability to work as an international student after filling out a CPT Form.

Computer Science Department policy on co-operative education courses

  • A student may take a co-operative education course if employed in an eligible position and with the agreement of the work supervisor.
  • Each credit equates to 5 - 15 hours of work per week throughout the semester of registration.
  • The student must work writing code in a professional software development environment where the software development cycle is performed in a formal manner.
  • Duration: The experience has a defined beginning and end, which is for the full semester term in which the student is registered, with the purpose to enhance benefits for both the student and employer. The student may be employed for a longer time (both before and after) but must be employed at least 12 weeks. Most of the weeks worked should coincide with the semester of registration unless the student is not registered full-time during the semester in which the work experience takes place, in which case students may register in the following semester, such as with a summer internship where registration may take place over the following fall semester.
  • Goals/Objectives: There are clearly defined learning objectives, detailed by the student’s mentor. The skills or knowledge learned should be transferable to other employment settings.
  • Supervision, Feedback, & Evaluation: The student must be mentored by a professional software developer with an educational and/or professional background in a field related to software development (e.g, Computer Science, Software Engineering). At the end of the semester, the student mentor must provide an evaluation of the student’s performance.
  • All students who register for co-operative training must submit a poster describing their professional experience. The completed poster must be submitted for review before finals week.