How UC students are embracing cooperative education programs

Ohio Magazine spoke with students and administrators to produce a story about UC’s top-ranked co-op program.

Gabriella Abell, a fifth-year interior design student, has completed four interior design co-ops using her skills with three employers: Stengel Hill Architecture in Louisville, Kentucky; Curioso in Chicago, Illinois; and Rockwell Group, in New York City.

She still remembers her first day at the co-op at Stengel Hill Architecture.

“In the moment, I was extremely nervous,” Abell told Ohio Magazine for a story. “It made me feel a lot better that there were two other UC students there interning at the same time.”

Among the top five best co-op programs nationally, UC founded cooperative education in 1906. The real world experience at companies, government agencies and non-profit organizations worldwide gave more 8,300 students a chance to earn while they learn last year.

Co-op students had collective self-reported earnings of $88.8 million, or nearly $10,700 per student per semester.

“It gives the students a real opportunity to apply what they’re learning in the classroom,” says Annie Straka, associate professor and associate dean in UC’s College of Cooperative Education and Professional Studies. “I think it’s a really dynamic experience to take classes and then go work in the workforce and then return to classes.”

Read the full story on co-op in Ohio Magazine online.

Featured top image shows UC student Andrew Matthews on co-op at Turner Construction with a work colleague.  Photo by Andrew Higley/UC Marketing + Brand.