My first co-op far exceeded expectations of myself and the job. I had the opportunity to work for the Eastman Kodak Company in Advanced Research as part of a division that worked exclusively on continuous inkjet printing systems. Current technology in this field is already capable of printing the entire volume of the Bible in less than 5 seconds. The beauty of my project was that I assisted in the next generation of this amazing product. At only twenty-one years old I was privileged enough to take over a position previously reserved for graduate students. This came with a virtually unlimited budget (for a co-op) and countless opportunities for independent design guided by the many PhD’s I worked with. A lot of my time was spent in a clean-room, fabricating intricate microscopic MEMS (Micro-ElectroMechanical Systems) patterns on silicon wafers. While doing this I was enveloped with advanced technology, from multi-million dollar fabrication machines to lasers precise enough to split cells. And to think, all this skill was developed in only a couple of quarters. The best part though, was not the fancy equipment or working on technology that is still years from being released, but getting to routinely showcase the results of my own experiments for co-workers in multiple countries. The confidence I gained from that Cool Co-op will last.