Playing a
Winning hand

When Brooke Boeding looked for employers willing to hire undergraduate engineering students, she knew she could rely on her co-op adviser.

That’s what the advisers at the University of Cincinnati do: help students match with companies in a program called cooperative education in which they divide the year between classroom instruction and full-time employment with a firm in their chosen field.

But co-op advisers also help graduating students kindle their new careers. Boeding turned to her adviser for tips. Boeding won’t graduate until the spring, but she already has a job offer from one of her former co-op employers.

“She helped me figure out the best options for co-op. But she also provided interviewing advice and help with negotiating a full-time offer from the company,” Boeding said.

“We are there from that first co-op class through their post-graduation job search,” Boeding’s adviser, Kelly Thompson, said.

Boeding was a co-op student at the Ohio manufacturing technology company Kinetic Vision.

“It’s an engineering and consulting company. Clients come to them for product and consumer packaging questions,” she said.

Boeding prepared computer models and ran simulations on various product iterations to determine if they would withstand the rigors of shipping or consumer use.

“Like a shampoo bottle. If you crush the bottle, you’ll see where the structural failures will happen. At the bottom of a shipping pallet, will it withstand the crush force? If someone drops it, will it break? Where?”

The company modifies the design to save manufacturers money on products or packaging for industries ranging from aerospace to medicine.

“Anything you might need stress analysis for,” she said. “That’s been the most amazing thing about being on co-op — realizing how much work goes into the simplest things,” she said. “A couple years later you see a product on the shelf and say, ‘I had a hand in that.’”

Kinetic Vision has deep ties to UC’s co-op program, including its CEO, former UC co-op student and College of Engineering and Applied Science graduate Jeremy Jarrett.

And according to another UC graduate, Jeff Petach, what sets UC’s co-op program apart from those at other schools is that it is mandatory. Petach is Kinetic Vision’s simulation manager who earned two degrees at UC. He joined the company as a UC mechanical engineering co-op student.

“Other schools don’t take it quite as seriously. Co-ops from UC lean into it,” he said.

Companies traditionally hire candidates to fill open positions. But Kinetic Vision prefers to develop talented co-op students who end up creating their own role in the company, Petach said.

“We’ve had more of an approach of developing good, capable people who are going to be a great fit for Kinetic Vision. They create the work for themselves,” he said.

Petach said good co-op students are problem-solvers.

“Finding solutions to a problem when there’s no obvious solution — that’s a lot of what we do,” he said. “So a good co-op student has a great attitude and is eager to learn more. We look for someone who is gritty, who will be resourceful and figure out how to get something done while also knowing when to reach out for help,” he said.

UC adviser Thompson said students in co-op end up creating a network of professional contacts that can help them make the transition to the job market.

“They can reach out to a former supervisor or mentor and tell them, ‘I enjoyed my experience. I would love to know if there are any open positions.’ That’s a powerful strategy,” she said.

And UC helps make those initial introductions.

“The first co-op is the hardest to find,” Thompson said. “Students typically don’t have as much experience. But they can leverage prior work experience in high school or internships.”

UC helps by hosting career fairs and sharing job openings with trusted co-op employers across the country and even around the world. After their first co-op, students only become stronger job candidates, Thompson said.

“Professional development and career planning is very much in the forefront of what we do. That’s a key differentiator for UC,” she said.

UC pioneered cooperative education in 1906 when Dean Herman Schneider developed what he called “the Cincinnati Plan.” Today, this model has been mimicked by schools across the country. But few do it as well as UC, Thompson said.

“By the time students leave UC, they have almost two years of work experience. And that’s a huge advantage when joining the workforce. Not every university can say that. That’s why we’re leaders in this space.”

While she is grateful for her parents' financial support of her education, co-op has made a big difference for her financially.

“Co-op is a paid opportunity. That’s really helped me,” Boeding said. “I’ve been able to save up so I’ll be in a really good place financially and experience-wise. UC has helped me come out of higher education well-rounded.”

But employers get value out of UC co-op as well, adviser Thompson said.

“It’s a great ecosystem for developing young engineers into full-time hires. In no other place can you get a test run of a future employee like that,” she said.

Boeding always wanted to be an engineer. She grew up in a family full of them. Her dad works in information technology. Her brother graduated with a degree in construction management from UC.

She took elective aerospace engineering and design classes in high school and joined her school’s engineering club.

“I knew I wanted to go into engineering. My dad and brother had both gone to UC and had good experiences there,” she said. “I knew if I wanted to go into engineering, UC was a no-brainer because of the co-op program.”

A family full of UC grads, one could say the Boedings are Bearcats for life.

Boeding is a fan of design. She started collecting Bicycle Playing Cards because of their intricate and unique artwork. She even toured the factory in Erlanger, where she presented its president with a motorized rotating deck carousel she designed to showcase her favorite decks.

“I love the artwork on them. That’s the main draw for me,” she said.

She’s also an avid card player. She plays euchre at UC and is a regular at public games at a downtown park.

Boeding learned about Kinetic Vision at a UC career fair during her second year at UC.

“The line for Kinetic Vision was around the corner. I applied to their modeling and simulation department. It all sounded good,” she said.

Most UC engineering students work five co-op rotations between semesters when they’re in class. Boeding finished three at Kinetic Vision and two more at Kyocera Senco Industrial Tools, where she got hands-on experience in their tool design group in Milford, Ohio.

Now back at Kinetic Vision, she's working part time until she graduates next year. She is making a new fixture to rotate objects for high-precision scanning, which she'll use for her senior capstone.

“I liked the environment and the people I work with. It was a lot of fun, honestly,” she said.

Photos: Andrew Higley
Digital design: Kerry Overstake
UC Marketing + Communications