More Than 60,000 Votes Cast to Pick UC’s Coolest Co-ops!

More than 60,000 votes from campus and community have just picked UC’s coolest co-ops in an online competition, part of co-op’s centennial celebration. Now, the winners you picked will be recognized at the Feb. 17 men’s basketball game.

Date: 2/9/2006 12:00:00 AM
By: Mary Reilly
Phone: (513) 556-1824

Photos By: Dottie Stover and Lisa Ventre

The coolest jobs are available to University of Cincinnati students via the university’s celebrated Cooperative Education program. Through co-op, students alternate time spent in the classroom with paid, professional work that lands them in some unlikely – though very cool – jobs all around the world. These jobs include creating products for Nike, helping to launch satellites, devising new food options for the military, creating Web sites for movie studios and helping to build the tallest skyscraper in Beijing.

Co-op at UC is celebrating its centennial. In fact, UC is the global birthplace of co-op, having founded the practice in 1906 with 27 students. Today, 100 years and 43 countries later, the university is recognizing co-op’s contributions to education, companies and students with a series of events live and online.

Most recently, campus and community went online in January to vote for the coolest UC co-ops as part of the “100 Cool Co-ops” contest. More than 60,000 votes were cast, and the winning students will not only be recognized online, they’ll also be recognized during halftime at the Feb. 17 UC men’s basketball game against Providence. Among the winners are

Marketing student Brock Fortman who went on a six-month co-op to Tokyo where he worked side by side with the president of his co-op firm – translating a business management book, creating a firm Web site and making preliminary selections of the firm’s suppliers, not to mention golfing with the company president.

Industrial design student Laura Myre had a co-op in Hong Kong where she climbed to the world’s second-largest Buddha statue and also traveled to mainland China where she hiked the Great Wall.

Fashion student James Ott had the chance to attend his first New York runway show in 2005 – and see his own handiwork worn by those

same runway models. He co-opped with designer Ralph Rucci, creating production pattern artwork and doing final garment constructions not only for the spring 2005 Ready-to-Wear Show in New York but also for the 2004 Couture Show in Paris.

Electrical engineering major Andrew Sampson helped launch the Space Shuttle Discovery from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, specifically helping to resolve a vital fuel-sensor problem.

Operations management student Shelby Shenkelman has had three domestic and one international co-op with Delta Airlines. Thanks to her co-ops, she was able to fly free and visit Spain and Mexico as well as sites throughout the United States.

Construction management student Brandon Stout helped with the renovation and expansion of the Ritz Plaza Hotel in Miami, Fla., and acquired a sideline in celebrity spotting as there were several movies in the making near to where he worked.

These cool co-ops and others will not only be recognized at the Feb. 17 basketball game, but they’ll also be recognized online on the 100 Cool Co-ops Web site and receive prizes worth at least $100. These include mall gift cards, MP3 players and golf accessories. For a complete list of the 100 winners, visit http://www.uc.edu/news/NR.asp?id=3614

UC’s co-op, which annually places about 4,000 students in professional, paid jobs around the globe, is a premiere program – ranked in the Top Ten of such programs year after year by U.S. News & World Report.

Co-op students at UC earn a collective $30 million annually. That breaks down to average monthly earnings of between $1,700 to $2,500 per student. Nationally, students with co-op experience tend to have an easier time finding a job upon graduation. According to the National Commission for Cooperative Education, 95 percent of co-op students have a job upon graduation while 60 percent of co-op students nationally go to work for their co-op employers.