Gaining skills and experience in a 16-month co-op position

You’re just finishing up a 16-month co-op position. Tell us why you chose a long placement early on in your degree. 

When you join co-op, you have some choice when it comes to the length of your work terms and when you sequence them in your degree. I knew I wanted a longer co-op work term so that I wasn’t having to seek out multiple positions over the course of my studies and or have to make many different moves to new work locations. 

I also felt that the potential to have a bigger impact at one organization outweighed the benefit of experiencing three or four organizations and work environments.

That’s certainly been my experience in my 16-month term at the City of Edmonton. Over the course of my time here I’ve been introduced to so many opportunities and I feel like I’ve had as varied experiences as I would through multiple co-ops. I’m actually training the co-op student who will be replacing me!

What have been some of the highlights of your role?

There is never a dull moment! I have not had the same day twice in 14 months of working for this team. 

I’ve been exposed to a lot more than I was expecting and my role has evolved considerably over my time here. One of the major highlights for me has been the opportunity to manage small projects for my team. For example, I recently ran the project to integrate Telus-managed network services into our design guidelines for our builders. 

I love designing things, and although I don’t get to do designs in this co-op position, I love being able to conduct design reviews on the designs submitted by the consultants for the various projects we have on the go. 

It’s like Lego at a real-world scale – you have your materials; your parameters, codes and construction standards; and your design requirements for thermal loads or other parameters and then you get to create something from that.

 There have been a few occasions where I’ve noted something that doesn’t quite work and it’s been rewarding to be able to bring this up to the engineers in charge. 

Before I started training the incoming co-op student there were only three of us – myself, the engineering project coordinator and the engineering project manager. It’s a small team so it means I’ve been given a fair amount of responsibility in many different areas. This has been a great learning opportunity. 

Have you used skills you learned in your classes in your co-op position?

Sort of! Engineering courses can be hard, and one of the advantages of them being difficult is that you are required to find the resilience and expertise to push through to find solutions. Although I might not use the math I’ve learned in school in my daily job, I do make use of how I’ve learned to think through problems and challenges. In the world of work, new issues arise all the time, often requiring you to think unconventionally to come up with a solution. 

 Any advice for new students? 

The courses are hard! But if you can push through it, you are likely to find it’s something you love. Also, co-op is a fantastic option for experiencing what it’s like to work in engineering while you are still a student. For me, it’s certainly affirmed that this is the career I want to pursue.