I did software coop at UBC, and I can say without a doubt that the coop model is purely an invention of a highly conservative business culture. For those with the skills and the desire, I say skip it. The loss of community with the rest of your class is huge, and the extra time is not worth the money compared to a real post-graduation career.
Additionally, most post-college hiring here in the Bay Area, and elsewhere, is focused on your inherent personal skills, and not on some aspect of "I've done it before". In other words, a coop buys you not much on your first hire out of school, and little post that.
Now this is all bracketed as a computer science coop. If you are seeking to do civil engineering in Canada, by all means stick with coop. Canadian companies are extremely conservative and (typically) won't hire you for what you can do, but what you DID do.
Loss of community with the rest of your class? At Waterloo co-op in engineering is not optional. Your entire class is on the same 4-month school-workterm-school schedule.
You're close enough to being "on-stream" with at least half of your starting class. The bulk of your co-op schedule will be alternating between 4-month school and work terms, and you'll generally align close to the engineering "8-stream" or "4-stream" schedules, with some 8-month terms here and there.
I am currently in the bay area wrapping up a co-op term (4 month intervals very similar to the waterloo experience). I disagree that it isn't worth it regardless of what your skill and desire are. You learn so much from just working that school does not give you, and that itself is worth it. But also while I agree that bay area companies will test and hire you for your skill, you have no foot in the door. You could be brilliant but have a lacking resume/application and they could just pass over your application. The point is that I agree that it may not help in the actual hiring process, but it gives you a better chance to get your foot in the door.
Wow, that is hugely different from my experience at UBC CS. I graduated in 2011, when did you finish?
"The loss of community with the rest of your class" - I didn't notice much community to begin with. It's a big program and a big school and people don't always take courses in the same order. Plus, the majority of people in CS were in co-op and my friends were often off on co-op at the same time as me.
I've also noticed a huge difference in job outcomes after graduation for people staying in Vancouver. Employers here seem a lot more likely to hire someone with coop experience.
I did the same at UBC and nobody should go in expecting it will be valuable no matter what just by signing up (depends so much on what you end up doing and what you personally enjoy and are good at), but I think there is a lot of value in doing internships before graduating for the experience and knowledge of what is out there. Helps bring more relevance to school work and you get to test out what you may or may not like in a 3-4 month period before having to commit full time.
I disagree. I'd actually argue that I learned a lot more in my coop placements than I did in many of my classes. Maybe the UBC coop experience is different? The companies hiring Waterloo coops are usually top notch and include well known Silicon Valley companies like Facebook, Google, Apple, Stripe, Square, Twitter, etc.
I too am from UBC and did 6 terms of coop...in Waterloo (guess which company) .
From what I observe, their coop model is completely different from UBC's. The 2 are completely different in nature.
From speaking to Waterloo students, it is obvious to me that the point of coop is to cram as much real life experience into the students in as little time as possible. Note that I say real life experience, not work experience. Many students have to sublease, go to a new work for 4 months, move back to Waterloo, lease from another student who is going to work, go to school for another 4 months, and repeat the whole cycle. This is a very hectic schedule. If you ask me, the point of this is indeed to keep you from being grounded, and not to be complacent in your place.
Another real life experience you gain is you know _a lot_ of potential employers. Most students I know had at least 4 supervisors they can contact after they graduated. This creates a very interesting dynamic where many students are not that concern about future employments because they know they will get hire by someone.
A very interesting situation I noticed is that class knowledge are quickly put into use. For example, in the previous 4 months the students would learn basic data structures (in C++ ! Not with Java like in UBC), then the next month they have to apply what they just learned in a professional environment. I would say say that this is actually good for learning as the knowledge is fresh in these students' heads, and they have all the real programmers to help them out if they don't understand something.
Of course, many students don't care about coop and just get though the 4 months. During my time there I saw many job postings in University of Waterloo's coop site that are plain bullshit. This is understandable though as really, no coop supervisors I talked to really expect U of W coop students to be very useful (at least not that useful with only 4 months worth of work term!)
Their engineering curriculum is much accelerated compared to UBC's. Stuff that are taught in UBC 300 classes are considered 200 classes in U of Waterloo. As I set though their classes, I was pretty impressed at the students' ability to retain what they learn, with all the switching between work and school. Many UBC engineering/comp science students I know would be hard pressed to maintain their grade.
Most students I talked to are fine with the hectic schedule. These students knew what they were getting into when they entered. Those who don't are washed out quickly.
In comparison, UBC coop seems to expect you to actually learn technical knowledge from the coop. This is a more traditional model where you spend 8 months with your head under water, then you can go back to the academia world of UBC and digest what you've experienced (and maybe alter your graduation goal). U of W requires its students to do this every 4 months. Continuous for 3 years. Maybe you like bioengineering? Do a 4 months coop and find out you hate it. Then try a financial engineering firm next. Don't like it either? Well try a different engineering firm next coop term.
Looking back, I sort of agree that UBC coop can be of less value compare to U of W's, but that's only because they have different aims.
PS. U of W's computer science coop _is_ optional. I only know 1 person who opts out of it, however.
PS2. I don't know if you know, but U of W's tuition is almost 2x as much as UBC. Coop is a good way to pay it off :) And many students see coop as such.
PS3. Thank god there's Wilfrid Laurier University 900m away from U of W. Now that's a party school with all the 'happenings' and art students.
"no coop supervisors I talked to really expect U of W coop students to be very useful (at least not that useful with only 4 months worth of work term!"
Hmm, having been a Waterloo co-op (97-01), we did some very useful things in those four months.
I rebuilt the backend content management & outbound marketing system for a major Canadian brokerage in 3 of those 4 months. I worked on a major features of a popular HTML editor in another term. One other term about 5 co-ops built a touch kiosk system (and software) for music stores that would burn custom CD's. I know a friend that worked on Wall Street building a market data feed for a major brokerage's fixed income system. This was in various locations - SF, Toronto, NYC.
I know of more than a few startups that were staffed at least half with Waterloo co-ops over the past couple of decades. Productivity would dip every 4 months but it was a remarkably effective way to get rotating technical talent in for cheap.
Everyone's experience differs of course, there are plenty of b.s. co-op jobs, but I would bet there are many companies still taking advantage of the talent/cost advantage.
Additionally, most post-college hiring here in the Bay Area, and elsewhere, is focused on your inherent personal skills, and not on some aspect of "I've done it before". In other words, a coop buys you not much on your first hire out of school, and little post that.
Now this is all bracketed as a computer science coop. If you are seeking to do civil engineering in Canada, by all means stick with coop. Canadian companies are extremely conservative and (typically) won't hire you for what you can do, but what you DID do.