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Getting The Most Out Of Co-Op Programs?
co-op-ted-out asks: "Myself and several other high school students from local school districts are currently co-op employees at a fiber-optic company. The first several weeks of the program were quite interesting and informative, but over the last month or so we have been used primarily as cheap labor in simple, repetitive jobs, such as equipment tests and upgrades. Although we are certainly getting a glimpse at a high tech industry, several of the other students and I don't feel that the company is living up to its end of the bargain, nor do we believe we are being used to our fullest potential. We certainly didn't sign up for this program in order to be cheap labor; we signed up because it was marketed to us as an "engineering project," and the majority of us plan to pursue engineering-related careers. What can we do as students to improve our experience, and what guidelines should any company follow when conducting a cooperative education program such as this, particularly with high school kids? Is there anyone out there who has found a successful way to run such a program?"
We all did the same in our time, plus you guys are lucky. If you were complaining they have you making coffee for management, running copy jobs or playing messenger boy then that would be pretty irritating.
The lesson you are learning is that engineering is not always glamorous. There are lots of tedious tests and tons of annoying paperwork to fill. And yeah, meetings, meetings and more meetings!
You might want to have a serious talk with the counselor or whomever put you into this position. What were the schools agreements with the employer? How did the program come about? Does the company really have a plan or is it just some executives idea of a neat thing to do?
I've been invloved with working with co-op or summer hires. Typically, I would get notice from some manager that a summer hire will appear in about a month and I'd better find something for them to do. I'm sure they exist, but I've never seen a program where the company made a concerted effort to provide a structured experience for these people.
Of course, the last time I was involved, it was a "project from hell", so all the regular employees were so involved with meetings and metrics that all the interesting technical work was assigned to the summer hires. Go figure.
Having gone through 5 Co-Op terms as part of my CS degree at university, I can tell you that what you're experiencing is generally the way it is. The fact is, no company wants to hire an "uneducated student", give them lots of responsibilities, and lose more money when the student fails to meet the challenge than if they had simply hired a "trained professional". This is true when you first start working full-time as well. You'll almost certainly get no major responsibilities in the first few months. It takes time for people to get to know you, see how eager you are to perform and learn, and find the limits of your capabilities...
The best thing you can do right now is be eager to do as much as possible, within your own limits. If they give you grunt work, just do it without complaint, and do the best job you can. People will notice, eventually. Try to ask questions and appear interested in things you aren't currently working on as well. If you show an interest, and more importantly an understanding of more complicated tasks, you'll be more likely to have them assigned to you, or at least be asked to help.
As for what would make Co-Op programs better? Longer terms. The program I'm going through has alternating 4 month cycles of School/Co-Op. 4 months is fine for classes, but is too short to get to know the company and people you are working for. If the terms can't be lengthened, then you should definitely try to go back to the same company a second time, if you have the opportunity to do so. Once people know you, the whole experience is MUCH more rewarding, for both you and the company involved.
Can somebody please clarify the star treck reference?
___
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
I second the notion about cheap labor. Usually, when the idea of "let's get some interns" it's been in the context of "I can't get these cool things that I know how to do done because i have all these other boring things that need doing". Management answer: get an intern to do that grunt work.
That said, there are usually a few cool people in the company who are willing to point you in directions where you can learn cool new things. Find some of these folks and ask them what would be useful for you to learn. You might have to read a few manuals, learn a new programming language, etc. Read these at home if you must. Then *do* something with it, then ask what you can do next.
Prolly the most important thing you can learn is that there are always things you can learn on your current job which will better prepare you for your next job. Don't wait for management to tell you what to learn: take the initiative yourself.
Restrictions are prohibited. Be well, get better.
Don't want to throw cold water on anything but let me just as you a question.. what can you do about it?
you are quite obviously not in a position where you can tell the company what work to allot to you. A company will trust those who are more experienced.. you will need to accept that. In the mean time, keep your eyes open, ears open...observe and learn.. Do whatever you can to make the best of what you have.
Alot of stuff you are doing are what people would do in the field. What you should do is finish your job as quickly as possible then ask ok what else do you want me to do. Or ask to be on a particular project. Well have fun
...that your last interaction with adults didn't include "You want fries with that?"
Well, as has been said before, that's the real world and what you get out of it is up to you. You could be bitter and get nothing or you could be active in the group socializing (like lunchtime conversations) and gain knowledge and experience from that. I've been in the CS field for 20+ years and done almost all of it, including VP of devo. I have hired PhD in CS students that have had to go through the same thing you're saying. What can you expect from someone that's been in academia for 6-8 years and the biggest project they've worked on is under 1000 lines and probably in one source file? I'm dealing with projects that are 1 million lines or more, including legacy code that nobody on the current team fully understands that spans departments and in some cases, companies. You need to learn to deal with 6 months to get changes/features out to the field. The real world isn't edit, compile, debug, repeat, distribute. Being low man on the totempole means doing the stuff everyone else doesn't want to do. Getting some experience and letting people (informally at lunch if you don't have another method) know that you can do other things is important. Many of the kids we've had come in have done their time but then noticed something we're not doing and been given a chance to prototype something and show their stuff. It won't be earthshattering but it might be something we missed or dismissed due to not having the resources to do it. Keep in mind the expectation levels for co-ops and even fresh outs is initially low, until proven otherwise.
If you don't like you the job, and think you're just being taken advantage of, quit.
The truth of it is that most engineering companies have a lot of grunt work to do... for the company, its either done by cheap co-ops or by high paid salary engineers. Your case is not unusual. You'll find that most co-op programs simply get your foot in the door. If you want to get ahead, do extra homework, speak up and gain your employers trust. No manager, engineering, co-op, or otherwise, would throw some of its important projects to you without gaining your trust, especially if there's grunt work to be done.
Get back to work slaves! [whip!]
What you need to realize is that you are going to be Cheap Labor almost all of the way through high school and in to college. An internship gives you valuable skills but it isn't tutoring. You'll find yourselves getting coffe and doing a lot of scut work for low pay. Near the end of any Internship you could find yourselves with a small non-mission critical project. But this project is of no real importance to the company. The reason behind this is that the business doesn't know how reliable you are and while you may have a high oppinion of your ability you have no real expiernce to back it up. For that reason you can expect to be doing scut work for 3 or 4 more years. Or yo can apply for a real job and accept real responsibility.
The only reason they're hiring coop kids is that they ran out of H1B visas.
You sir, are an idiot.
Fuck you.
Welcome to the exciting industry! Your now just a step above the people who make Nike shoes!
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
This is a good idea - but as an intern/co-op be sure to tell your boss that your project will only save half the money you think it will.
That way if your project runs a little over budget, you'll still be seen as the guy who got 85% more savings than he promised. Underpromise, overdeliver. Your boss will probably fudge the numbers to his boss anyway.
Tips and Tricks for Mozilla
This is the way the world is. Get used to it. Expect when you get out into the "Real World" that your first job will probably be as bad, if not worse.
Just a dude. Stuck in IT.
And welcome to the working week.
Basically, that is all any employer hires anybody _for_, to get something done that they find too time-consuming and/or mundane. BillG hires software engineers because the project has become too big for him to handle by himself - he'd love to, because then he'd get to keep ALL the money, but he can't.
The only way to get something more interesting to do is to do the stuff you're assigned, and then look for something more interesting, and do that, too. If you get noticed doing things beyond the requirements, particularly if they're difficult, you might get promoted or a raise. Your employer DOES NOT CARE what you do and do not find "interesting" or "exciting".
Exceeding the recommended torque is not recommended.
Testing and design verification are both very important steps in the design process. They may also be quite boring. Any programmer can tell you that debugging is quite boring...and I can tell you that as an engineering student, I must test and verify every one of my designs...sometimes enumerating every possible input and output condition and checking them by hand. Also, you must consider that somebody must perform those boring jobs, and it requires some intellegence to handle many of those jobs...they can't hire somebody out of McDonald's and pay them minimum wage to do this stuff...therefore, they must be paying you something better than minimum wage. In any case, I suggest that you get over it and make the most of your job...you can have fun with virtually any job, so go have some fun with it!!!
# They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. --Fran
Students that co-op are required to do at least 4 quarters of coop, with students who stay on schedule completing 6 or 7 quarters of co-op depending on whether you take your first summer off or not. It's a five year program where you take classes for freshman year and then you can start co-op, with most students alternating co-op, school, co-op, school, etc on a quarterly basis. Works out nice since by the end of a quarter, you're often ready either to stop working or get out of classes, and do something else.
I'm currently with my 3rd company on my 6th co-op quarter. Students are required to stay with a company for at least 2 quarters, with a lot of students staying with one employer for the whole time. I decided at the beginning that I wanted to work for as many companies as I could since I had (and still don't) have a clue what exactly I want to do after I graduate.
I've learned a lot of things from my various co-op experiences, and I've also had some really stupid co-op experiences. My first co-op was with a fiberglass company that made parts mainly for the heavy truck industry (i.e. body panels for Freightliner semi's) and I worked in the lab there. I learned that small companies can be a bit screwy. The lab I worked in wasn't the most organized lab, and it was quite out-dated. Lots of 486's and the likes, with a lot of work being done in DOS based applications. I was stupid back then and didn't understand that a lot of a co-op is what you make of it.
My second co-op was with a DOE lab, where I worked in the ceramics group, which was interesting. I got my first experience with SEM there, but I also came to realize that your supervisor while on co-op makes a huge difference. My advisor didn't really interact with me, and didn't give me much to do, dishing me off to his post-docs. His post-doc's had no idea what to do with me since most of the work they were doing was stuff that they needed to do, and couldn't rely on someone else to do, so I ended up doing a lot of routine sample prep and the like. I also ended up working 4-6 hours a day and getting paid for 8 since all co-ops there are given a weekly stipend. Again, I probably could have got a lot more out of the co-op if I'd taken the initiative, but it would also have helped if the management had a better idea of how to utilize me. Other students were kept busy and productive, doing meaningful work because their advisors had taken the time to plan out what they'd use a co-op student for before they arrived.
Now, my third co-op is with a large computer company, which does more consulting now than hardware. Anyway, I work in a failure analysis lab, analyzing all kinds of things that come from production. This has by far been my best co-op, and I think a lot of that has to do with my getting along with my supervisors. Granted, my first two weeks here weren't the greatest since the guy I was supposed to work for was so busy he didn't really have time to set me up, but I ended up meeting one of the other engineer's in the department, and since then I've had lots of challenging work. I've developed some analysis techniques, refined my SEM and light microscopy techniques, and really learned how to cross-section and polish samples.
So, looking back through my rather long winded post it looks like a good co-op relies on two things. One being your initiative, the other being how well prepared the company is for a student. Rather difficult for companies too. They want to challenge the student, but they don't want to overwhelm and frustrate them either, and they have to do this w/o knowing the student except for a resume and an interview.
My co-op department does point out that your first quarter with most companies will usually be kind of boring, where you're mainly going to learn the ropes, and how things work, and probably won't be given lots of responsibility. The longer you stay with a company, the more responsibility you'll be given. I know I've done my fair share of grunt work on all of my co-ops.
My advice to you would be to find someone you work with who will really act as a mentor for you, and has time/energy to teach you and also pass work on to you. The longer you stick with one or two people, the more trust they'll gain in you (unless you turn out shitty work), and they'll give you better jobs. Yeah, you'll probably still end up doing the stuff no one else wants to do but that's what happens when you're on the bottom of the ladder . . .
As a former co-op employee of two different companies, I have a combined total of over three years experience in that kind of job, as well as a good bit of experience on the flip side of the coin, so I believe I'm qualified to give you some perspective of both sides of the issue.
When I was a co-op, I too felt that I was a mis-used resource: first of all I'm a programmer, not a network guy, so my time in Support I felt was completely wasted. The rest of my positions were ostensibly programming positions, but the kinds of programs I was given to do were almost completely worthless (only one of the 9 projects I worked on made it onto my resume). The kind of work I did that actually did make it into the products were, as you said, menial--QA, debugging easy stuff, etc. I felt like I was not getting any kind of useful experience doing these kinds of jobs. More on that in a minute.
On the flip side, you have to realize what your employer is dealing with: an almost completely untrained technical employee with (usually) no real experience other than tinkering with a home computer or in a high school class. In addition to assigning the co-op work to do, they have to make sure the co-op CAN do the work, on top of all the other stuff that goes on your managers desk: REAL programming, infrastructure planning, interdepartmental meetings, phone calls, and eventually life in general. So you have to realize that in general, a co-op is only a tiny blip on his manager's radar. Most of the time they would LIKE you to be happy with the work you're doing, but if nothing else, they'll settle for keeping you busy. The best way of doing that without having you intrude on the hundred other items on their daily to-do list is to give you easy, menial tasks that you'll be able to do with minimal assistance.
The way its supposed to work at this point is that as you require less assistance, you get more responsibility assigned to you until your assistance level rises to what it used to be and a sort of equilibrium is established. What usually happens is that because you're dropping off their radar, they forget you're probably getting bored; if you're like most co-ops, you don't get to sit in on the status meetings and other such things that tell everyone else what needs to be done without having to ask.
What's the best way to ensure a good co-op experience? First of all, realize that part of the reason you should co-op in a particular area of IT is to find out if you really find it interesting; all areas have something about them that sucks; for software development its QA... for networking its tech support, etc.... While it doesn't seem fair that you should have to do all the crappy stuff, you have to realize that until you can do that well, you won't be able to do the cool stuff well. And if you find at this stage that you can't handle the crappy stuff at all, then you may not want to go into this field after all. That's how I found out that I wasn't meant for network security.
Secondly, get through your work quickly and let your boss know when you need more to do. If your daily routine consists of some boring network task like reading logs, try and automate it. write scripts or something. If its qa'ing, write scripts for what you can, and do a good job with what you can't. Especially in QA, if you have access to the source code and can try to pinpoint the area of the code which is causing a particular bug, you demonstrate some capability in your field. (don't spend too much time doing this though.) Stay there long enough and you'll work your way up enough to be satisfied.
Above all, demonstrate some initiative. That's what gets you cool things to do.
Realize too, however, that as long as you work for this company, you'll be looked at as a "co-op" and thus an inferior, even if you get hired on as a full-timer. It sucks, but that's the way it is. When you're ready to move up, be ready to move on.
Good luck
You guys are lucky your not interning where I work. I make sure that our interns understand the facts of business upfront. No one cares how smart you think you are. I love when some little fucker tries to tell me how to do my job, and I love it even more to verbally slame him when I show him that his idea will not work, and would of cost X amount, and to shut the fuck up and get me some coffee. It's just a shame when the parents call wondering why Billy came running home crying with his ass bleeding. Play the game like everybody else. Watch, learn, and don't get in the way. Because guess what? Here's a clue- YOU DON'T HAVE ANY EXPERIENCE PUSSFACE Snot nose rich whiny kids piss me off.
Great! You managed to become a token employee. That will get you far. Lot's of good personal references coming from that job. Glad you like the field you choice to be employeed in, asshole.
P.S.
Want to compare paychecks? I bet that I make at least 4X as you, you piece of shit...
As a Senior UNIX Architect, this is the person I'm looking for in a co-op situation. If you give menial work and the person simply grinds through it without even wondering if it could be automated, then you know that this person lacks ingenuity/motivation/creativity/etc.
It seems like it's getting much worse out there when I go to movie theaters and the kids behind the counter cannot get "coke, half full with ice" right.
If you are one of the 2% of kids out there with an actual brain and a tiny amount of creativity, these co-ops would be breeze work because it's almost certain that the people with these same qualities above you on the ladder will recognize this. (Then there's always the possibility that you work at a company that is nearly devoid of real talent. Run for the door!)
A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
this is common in the biotech industry. i'm not sure if it is because of regulations or what. you just dont get the kind of expirence required for pharmaceutical research with a masters.
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
-- john
it's true for chemical engineering when you are talking about the biochemical engineering aspect. it's really depressing.
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
-- john
oh how wrong you are. they are cleaning up after phd's. thats one of the reasons i decided to stay in school after i got a masters. i didnt want to be a dishwasher.
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
-- john
When I was working as a co-op student at a local mill I was doing those grunt jobs and some basic
trouble shooting, they didn't trust me with anything better. One day I saw a really horrific MS Access application, nothing too fancy but I saw several ways to improve it.
I took a chance, fixxed things up and then showed it to management. After the ooing and awing where over they used my program instead of the old one.
From then on I was given other programs to "fix" and several other more exciting projects. I've been working elsewhere for over a year now but they still call from time to time for me to "fix" things.
...because this conversation happens often:
Boss #1 Hey, we need to hire a entry level employee
Boss #2 We can't hire just anyone, we want someone with real world experience, even if we are only paying a starting salary
HR Dweeb Hrm, I received this resume from someone who just graduated from WestNorthSouthern University and did the co-op program. They've got some real-world experience and worked at this company whose name I recognize. All the rest in this pile are just out of college with no real work experience beyond waiting tables at Friendly's.
Boss 1&2 in unison Hire them!
I've been on both sides of the equation, as an intern and as an employer. Yeah, I worked for $100/week while I lived in my grandparents' den for 6 months but that got me my first job. And when I see a resume for a just-out-of-college grad with some actual relevant work experience vs. summer jobs, guess which one I'll be more likely to hire?
I did a full year of co-op type work during my degree. For the most part the work was very dull and repeatative. I am not so sure the fact I had a years work in the commerical world stood much ground when it came to getting a real job later.
If you are doing a crappy job, the fact you stuck with it despite of that is a very good thing, as it shows you are not about to give up one a task, just because you do not like it very much. As others have mentioned, jobs are full of less desirable tasks. That fact helped my far more than any experience I gained on the tasks I was doing in the company at the time.
There is certainly some easy/simple work that we have them do, but most comes in the form of higher level projects. Some even get to go on travel to meet(impress) customers!
A few projects:
- Prototypes of data-driven web sites
- Building those same sites:)
- Our intranet
- SysAdmin stuff
- Client/Server and database engine programming
- New language bindings for our database engine
More importantly, often they 'own' a particular project. Also, we feel that school is far more important then how many hours they put in, etc. If they can't make it in, we just ask they they call or e-mail to let us know. Not to mention that the pay isn't all that bad either!This is so true. My company always has one or two co-ops. We give work to do as work is finished and as we come to trust the quality of the work done.
Those co-ops that do only a little get only little to do and never looked at again.
The hard workers will get more and more projects as they finish stuff.
In fact the last real hard worker we had was good enough that we gave him real board layout to do. That board is currently in a shipping product. Needless to say he got a job offer when he graduated.
-Rob
If people are willing to do the work for the price the company is offering, then there is no reason the company should pay people more. If you want more money or a different working experience, find a different employer.
I do a "class" at my high school where they basicly having us do this for a grade and hs credit (if I had done double english & history I could graduate at the end of this semester, I am a junior). I get some of the more intresting jobs because the advisor acknoledges that I know more than him (He was doing this 3 years ago).
All I can say is do the grunt work because sooner or later they will let you do the interesting stuff. Or expect it because you know more and they don't like reading what the error message is saying ("Another computer on the network already has this name" work ticket forwarded to me. They got around to fixing it before I got to the machine (I only "work" 1 day a week, I do yearbook for the advisor's wife the other 4 days, I maintain computers there also (the computers next to the trashcans make excellent X terminals off our dual pentium 200MMX server))
That's why they call it work. It's 99% bullshit and 1% eureka. Get used to it.
For the rest of your work life, you will be sizing up situations, and trying to figure out how to make them work for you. This experience has shown you that you are going to have to get your plate up to the buffet line yourself.
Your needs are the last on everybody else's list, but the first on your own list.
What I have learned is to NEVER let the quality of my work go down, and keep looking for people who appreciate what I can do, and are willing to pay for it.
Its a game, have fun playing it.
If you got a $100 bill, put your hands up...
I started in tech support and quickly made my way to sysadmin. Since then I've learned that most jobs in the tech sector have a high degree of repetitiva and dull tasks. It's the reality. As a sysadmin I pictured spending my days dealing with complex problems and interesting projects, but most of my time is spent applying patches, cancelling run away print jobs, and adding/deleting user accounts. Sure this is broken by the occassional "We're replacing all the printers in the building and implementiong a central print server, GO!", or "Write a perl script to automate this new process implemented by the developemtn team", but this is the exception. I'm sure developers wish they could spend a lot more time writing killer code than meticulously debugging lines of someone elses code (or their own), but that's the nature of the bussiness. However, just keep in mind that system testing and upgrading is an important part of the operations of many tech companies. Someone has to do them, and when tech workers can usually (and easily) change companies at a whim if they don't like their work environment, who do you think is going to be doing the menial work?
______________________ There is no
I am going to be co-opping in Nashville this coming school year (01-02) and I am having trouble finding a job working in the high-tech or computer industry. Can anyone give me insight on how to go about finding a co-op oppurtunity? Thanks so much.....
i was responding poster of the parent, i don't want to let people get all down on what kind of job you can get right out of school.
sounds like they're working for a company thats on its way under. if it can't efficiently use its resources, i would find work at another company.
i kind of agree, you need to set up a system that automates what you are doing now as much as possible. after you show a little initiative, people will notice, and when you ask for more work they will probably try a little harder to think of something for you to do.
i would like to disagree about entry level positions (at least regarding hardware jobs). if you have the right skills you can really hit the ground running. i have seen guys get involved in their own designs in less than 6 months. i myself got to do a redesign out of school (better than testing, not quite as good as design) if they want you plugging cards into a test box, pressing buttons, and typing in results 8 hours a day for 6 months its a sign that there either isn't enough work to go around or the managers aren't doing a good job shoploading. either is a bad sign. anybody who disagrees based on experiences over 3 years ago is not caught up in the current state of the hardware world.
those guys are cleaning up after themselves, not sitting there for 8 hours a day cleaning test tubes or whatever.
That is as a co-op student and as someone who had to supervise co-op students, I would say that the success of such programs depends on the employer not viewing students as "cheap labour." I think that this point is key as I made my choice to go into IT (I'm an IT Director) based on my experience in co-op where I did everything that a sysadmin would do. In fact, for the last couple of months that I was in co-op, I was the sysadmin. Perhaps I was lucky, I don't know. In any case, employers have to make this as meaningful as possible so that students get as much out of it as possible.
OTOH, there's a certian amount of s**t work that we all have/will do. As long as it's not being a pure gopher, that's acceptable.
Just my $0.02 (CDN) worth.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
I wouldn't rule out larger companies though. If the company has a good intern/co-op program set up, you can do some great things.
I'm currently co-oping with Microsoft (a rather large corp), and I've got a feature that's shipping with Office XP.
Just make sure you do some research into the company and actually find out what kind of projects they give to co-ops.
I started coop from Northeastern University working at a company called General Interactive. www.interactive.com. I was sposed to do MIS stuff, and about 2 weeks into it, i was switched to the 3rd shift on saturday and sunday 12midnight to 12noon. Worst thing ever. I hate that company and hope they have their fate sealed like most other startup eCommerce crap companies.
you dont get paged at 3am on a regular basis. you dont have to wory about loosing money, or getting sued. you dont have to listen to hundreds of people like you whine. guess what the higher up people do. the same stuff you do when they arnt managing a zillion ppl like you. trust me, the upper ups would much rather be doing upgrades and testing than paperwork. a job is not a school, it is a job. you are there to preform tasks for the company. learning this is what your internship is all about.
Stop crying. I would have killed for that kind of work in high school, when I worked in a pet store to try and get enough money to buy a car so I would have reliable transportation to get to a decent job after graduation.
You are a high school student. I know people making $100,000+ who do that kind of work, and they hate it too. Grow up and learn from the experience. Ask questions. Work late to get it all done sooner and then maybe they can find you other stuff to do.
But do not complain. You could be working at Taco Bell like many of your fellow students.
Get yourself a copy of "The Soul of a New Machine" by Tracy Kidder ISBN: 038071115X.
The real world of engineering is cold, hard, dull and boring. People colapse from the boredom on a regular and predictable basis, also check out "Death March" by Edward Yourdon ISBN:0130146595
Read those and toss out any ideas about glamour, fame, riches or glory. Then decide if you enjoy the good stuff that come with the bad.
A boss (co-worker) of mine once said to me, "If this were all fun we could get people to pay us to do it, instead we have to pay them."
I sure hope the military recruiter doesn't get too close to you guys.
Take it as a warning that if you don't work hard a school this is what the rest of your life will be.
threadeds blog
I'm a 3rd year university student at one of the larger telecom companies that's been around for awhile. Currently, I work in the switch products division helping the test engineers with their testing, putting results on the website, and generally facilitating their information to get moved along the chain in the company, as well as(through my administration of the group website), helping to keep the engineers informed of the latest test developments, documents and so on.
The first weeks were scary, as I didn't know what STP stood for, or any of the other acronyms tossed around like so much confetti at a parade. I'm still learning it all, even after 6 months, and it gets better all the time.
I am curious about the difference between a high school co-op and a college co-op. There's no way I could do what I do now 4 years ago, as I was just learning C++, had begun to play with HTML, and refused to upgrade my trusty copy of Netscape 2.0. Now, I'm writing shell scripts to process data, I'm a Solaris junkie, and have a fully networked apartment with my boyfriend.
So while the high school co-oping may suck, college level co-oping rules. The only post I read before I started posting said "Its worth it when you're older". And this is true. In 6 months I've shown and felt such improvement in my quality of work and ability to work with computers its amazing! To start in high school will be an added bonus for your personal knowledge and resumes. It sure beats my high school job at Boston Market.
Since the company needs good people, it's in the company's interest to give interns interesting tasks, and generally give them an experience which will encourage them to apply for a job there when they graduate. Oh, and to tell their classmates, friends, and fellow networkers which companies treat their interns well.
A fairly high proportion of the interns we work with turn into regular employees, and good ones. Everybody wins.
(Me, I sneaked in through the window while HR was momentarily distracted. Shhhh.)
First, you are cheap labour!
Second, equipment test and upgrade is something that engineers do! (although i don't, personally)
Now, to elaborate.
You are cheap labour. You are high school students. In terms of the technology, it is most likely that you know about 1% of what the engineers know. Which is in the company's better interests (in terms of time and finance); paying high school students to do a repetitive job or paying engineers to do it? Of course, the company should hold up their end of their social contract and expose you to technology.
They are exposing you to technology! Let me reiterate - you are high school students. You are capable of much, but most likely you aren't yet capable of designing fibre-optics (or whatever it is they do there). You are likely in the position where you are at the peak of the parabola in terms of what you can contribute to the company and what they can contribute to you. (outside of money, that is)
Testing is a LARGE part of the engineering business, and anybody who says it is not is likely part of a vapourware company. Exposing you to testing is a great way to get you to learn what's going on. Testing isn't just throwing a switch and saying "it doesn't work", but following a detailed procedure, noting where it fails, producing a report sufficient to allow people to reproduce a fault, and often offering suggestions about why something failed. There are many positions with the title "Test Engineer". (who do a lot more than described here)
Personally, i don't think you have anything to complain about, you just don't know it, yet.
Demonstrant's Open Source Tools
I believe you skimmed over the part that said (paraphrased) "we are high school students". They are not people with engineering degrees.
Demonstrant's Open Source Tools
2. they don't have time for;
(Aplaud-for-yourself-alert!!) I am good. I got all the best projects within the companies when I went on traineeship. These were either the-most-fun-projects, or the-most-prestegious-projects, stuff the ordinary people didn't have time for. So in the case you're good, be better than the regulars, and teach that to the people who work for your company.
I was also a cheap labour, but I learned a lot, then you get a win-win situation right?
For your situation now, if they don't give you good projects, get another company if possible, or take a deep breath and search for 'projects' on your next co-op.
Bizar technology?
Yes, Co-Op students generally get the shaft in terms of doing the duties no full time person wants to do, and are certainly viewed as a way to get menial jobs done. This is unsatisfying and frustrating, I know, but it is also really valuable time. It might not seem like it, but time will tell you it was.
The first thing is that as a highschool student you are getting an early opportunity to see how the corporate environmet works. Pay attention, because it is information you will need to succeed later in life, and others you graduate college with might not have it. Second, you get a first hand glimpse of age discrimination, which is unavoidable. To the "adults" at the company, you are just kids, more likely to screw around than get things done reliably, and they will treat you as such. They might not be right, but it will happen. This is also something you can learn from and be prepared for when you are all gung-ho and thinking you are really knowledgable with a degree fresh out of college. You won't be looked at in this light until you have a wrinkle or two.
The third thing is probably your biggest benefit, and that is that you get to see a part of a real process that is necessary to get a job done or a product built. Someone has to do this job, and knowing it will be infinately beneficiary when you go to perform a higher level function pernmanantly in the same process.
At your next Co-Op, og back and see if you can get a job one step up the food chain. Be patient and you will learn a great deal. You can't change it yet, so try and work with it.
Of course, some companies are just clueless about how to use people. Where I work, the lab director had a flight simulator programmer scanning photos for his PowerPoint presentations.
I'm not saying that it should be that way. It's supposed to be an educational experience. If this is the boring part of the job, then I would say it's fair game. If it's completely unrelated work, however, then that is not appropriate.
Here's a description from the University of Michigan.
Well, after having gone through the co-op process at my university, I've learned a few things. The first is that companies hire co-ops as cheap labour. It's a fact of life and now, as owner of a company myself, I understand why that is...companies make money off their people as well as their products. The second thing I learned is that you can affect your experience and make it positive, even if you find the company you're working for isn't being terribly helpful. First, make your supervisor aware that you're available for a larger workload, or suggest that you have some ideas on project X. Suggest, tactfully, that you feel you have talents that can be used in other areas as well. Also, be aware of what is happening in other areas of the company, since if you really are being under-utilized, maybe the reason is that there just isn't the work where you are in the company. Maybe there is in other departments that interest you! If so, suggest a transfer or ask the director of the other area if there is a small project you could make some inroads on. DON'T go behind your manager's back to do this -- it's a politics thing. Remember, too, that companies need time to feel out your skill set and to build trust in your abilities. Good managers (i.e. non-pointy-haired) watch their people perform even the menial tasks and gauge efficiency and reliability BEFORE assigning them to juicy tasks. Be efficient and be reliable with the tasks you are given. Maybe you'll notice the work you're assigned changing to things of more interest to you. If all of this fails, and you finish out your co-op term unsatisfied, just understand that there are jobs like that. Not everyone likes every environment, even if it is "in their field". I personally can't stand corporate IT departments and will never work in one again. But that doesn't mean it's not right for somebody else. Co-op is about learning where you ARE meant to be and if you can at least take that much information out of your work term, then it hasn't been a loss.
I am still a high school student and I work for the IT department at our school district. Although most of my friends in fast food is making more money than me I am getting alot more out of my job.
I have been working at the school district for a little under 3 years and I have learned alot over that time. So far at the age of 18 I am a administrator of out NT domain and help adminstrate the unix ppc (AIX & LINUXPPC) boxen. I have also worked with 95, 98, ME, 2000, NT4, OS9, LINUXPPC, AIX, and iLINUX. Did I mention that I also used to run the webserver and did web site design. Now when I go to college I know where I want to focus my studies. Also I have 3 years of experiance in many different areas under my belt. And how many people do you know that can say they love thier job in fast food. I though not.
Now often I wished I did get paid more. Also, I am the one that has to haul PC's all around the district (I am know as the GRUNT CREW). If you ask me as a High School student in a similar situation, QUIT YOUR WHININ! Yes you are in high school, and yes you will get the dump jobs. If I were you I would be grateful of the wonderful experiance you are getting.
A coordinator inside of the company runs most of these programs. It was his job to find these co-op students and find placement with the company. If you feel that things are not right, talk to this person.
:)
Explain to the coordinator that you feel there is some sort of miscommunications between what you are expecting and what you are doing. Is this what was planned for me for me? It is fair to ask that you would like to get a reassignment to an area that has what you are looking for. Now what are you looking for? Did you have some input or did you just let them stick you somewhere? Two sides here
This is a two way street. They are trying to lure you into work there when you finish your education and for you to find out what is out there.
Unfortunately having a good co-op can be contingent on something that's required before you even set foot in your cubicle (or office, as the case may be) - an employment agreement.
One of the reasons that it's better to obtain a co-op through a school rather than individually is because the school will generally draw up an employment agreement that the company will have to sign before hiring you. At my school, for example, the hiring company is required to outline the basic work responsibilities that you will have, and if the requirements do not seem to reach the level of challenge you require, they will have to negotiate with the school before (or after, if they breach the agreement) hiring you.
I realize you are not yet in college, so you're pretty much on your own in this case. But you might consider discussing such an agreement with your next employer before you sign on as a co-op. It's not entirely unheard of in such cases. Also, some colleges have built in co-op programs (Among them Drexel University, where I study, and I believe Northeastern has a similar program). It might be worthwhile for you to consider something like that when you look at colleges :)
Best of luck to you!
Your education will always be what you make it.
That includes most of the jobs you do in the first 2-6 years of your (or at least my) working life.
Let people know that you know more than they think you do, and let it be known that you are always interested in learning more.
If a company really only wants you as grunt labour (and be sure of this first) then leave the company and find one that will teach you more. That's what you have to do in the real world. Jobs don't get better without pro-active involvement from an employee.
Talk to your boss or your Co-op coordinator/counsellor about what you feel is missing. See if there is something more available to you. And remember that your education will not be their highest priority unless you make it that way. Unlike your teachers, your boss is not there for you. At least they see it that way.
"A witty saying proves nothing." -Voltaire
How old are you? 15?
i've been very idealistic for a long time, switching lots of jobs looking for "the perfect one" - i.e. as little testing, paperwork, etc. as possible, smart people around, interesting projects, and so on. some places were better than others, but in every single one of them i felt exactly as you describe - repetitive tasks, huge underutilization of my potential, and so on... so i said "fuck it" and went to grad. school. you don't make much money in academia, but everything else is great. i'm sure there are other solutions, or maybe i just hadn't been looking long enough, but it seems to me i made a pretty good choice. science is much more fun than the real world...
First of all, relax. Employers usually view co-ops as cheap labor. This is pretty normal and you don't need to worry about it too much. Do your best to have a "yes sir, can do sir!" attitude and maybe they'll ask you back and give you better work.
You're getting two very valuable things from this experience:
- Something to put on a professional resume'. This is actually very valuable. When you go off to college and try to get a part-time job doing something more interesting than flipping burgers, you will be able to hand people a real resume showing a real job on it. Okay, so it's only one, but employers will be impressed that you have one when everybody else your age has zero. If you can leverage this to keep doing pseudo-professional jobs through college, not only will you be a better earner than most college students, but when you graduate you'll be able to tell potential employers "yes, I have a degree and five years of experience!", and believe me that can make the difference. For the rest of your life you'll be able to honestly tack years of experience on when you're telling people how long you've been in the business.
- You'll have business experience. When you hold a professional job, part of what they pay you for is technical ability... and part is business ability. From your job, even from the grunt work, you will begin to learn about how busines works. You'll learn how to interact with people on a professional level, how to talk to them, how to deal with them. Believe it or not, this is actually immensely valuable. In 5 or 10 years you'll find yourself explaining to employers that they should pay you more because you have business experience... and they will, if you can articulate specific business skills you have. Two months ago I negotiated myself into a 40% raise by successfully explaining to my new employer why my business skills make me valuable.
Stick with it, grin and bear it (yes really, I do know it sucks, I got an internship at 16 too), and know that you're doing the right thing to get the job experience. We're rooting for you.hey, i'm sure you're intelligent and all, but give me a break, a company needs to be practical. you're fooling yourself if you think you'll be working on the most interesting projects and that your input will be respected in any way whatsoever. You've been alive for fewer years than many of the employees have spent years of experience - and maybe only in that company.
i'm all for young geeks. but you need to be realistic.
and enjoy what experience you're getting. remember, some people's idea of a co-op experience is, "fetch ma coffee boy!" and so on. the company's taking a big chance hiring high school students when for just a little more money, they could have gotten real engineers that are more reliable and less likely to cause trouble. when you're older, they'll give you more responsibilities. or when you've been there longer, whichever comes first.
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
[o]_O
But menial tasks need not be solely menial. Ask a lot of questions. find out why you are doing what you are doing, what happens next in the process, the reasons thing run the way they do. Let the Company know you are an inquisitive person who wants to learn. The powers that be will see this, and will eventually give you more responsibilities.
We have a high school student interning in our Unix department. I would love to be able to give him root and have him install upgrades, etc, on our servers, but, quite frankly he doesn't have the experience for me to trust him with such a task, and it's my ass if something goes Wrong.
Instead we must give him more menial tasks, and if he is self-motivated enough he will explore the boundaries and beyond of these menial tasks, and gather enough knowledge that we will trust him with more responsibilities.
The other problem is that while i would love to sit with him and show him all the ropes, i simply don't have the time; my job must get done too. Instead we show him one or two things to do, and let him go. Luckily he is self-motivated enough that he is also teaching himself perl on the way. We hope to have him complete one largish programming task before his Sentence is up.
-f
-f
www.blackant.net
You MUST be a high school student.
This to me sounds like some world class whining. "They're not showing me anything cool like they said they were gonna!" Well here's your first lesson about the real world sparky. Speak the hell up, let them know you want to work on better projects, but have something in mind before you do. Yeah they're going to use you for slave labor, what the hell do you expect? You're in friggin' high school. Do you have any real knowledge and experience under your belt? NO! You may think you do, but you'll realize in about four years you don't know jack. This coop job is excellent experience though, perhaps not in the sexy tech aspect of the industry, but you are learning the dynamics of a real world work setting, and believe me, that means quite a bit more than you think. You've got to walk before you run. Man, I would have KILLED for a coop position when I was in HS. I didn't have one until I was a sophomore in college. After about 8 months of that I found myself in the same position you're in now. Instead of whining, I looked around and found innovative ways to improve our processes. I sat down, wrote some code and before I knew it, I made myself pretty damn invaluable in that department. You've gotta pay your dues, man, you're not entitled to a goddamn thing. That's what's the matter with kids these days!!! Boy, in my day...
Even if you are the guy shoveling poop behind the Clydesdales, you have made it past the security guard. Make sure you get the job at hand done first then focus on getting to know people and find a permanent job you could move toward. I like the earlier post on inventing your own job. I do that daily!
B section, fortunatly
The univerisity I go to, Kettering , is based on the idea of co-op education. Every one has to have a co-op, usually for all five years that you are there.
And I know many college students who have the same problem you do. I know I did at my co-op when I first started. They had me doing mostly paper work for new job contracts and it was driving me nuts(especially because there wasn't much of it because of y2k upgrades).
I don't fault them for doing this, they didn't know what I could do. It would be much worse for the company, and the student, if they expect you to already be able to do the same job that the engineer's that have degrees are doing. It takes a balancing act to figure out where each individual's skills fall in.
As I was saying they had me doing paper work, and not much of it, maybe 8 hours worth a week. So I spent my free time productivly. The company did database programming in a language called PICK, so I spent all my free time at work teaching myself PICK. After a while my mangers walked by and noticed what I was doing. They were shocked that I already knew how to program, and took the initiative to learn the language that they used. The next day I came in and had a stack of modifications that they wanted me to make to different parts of the code.
So put forth some initiative and show them that you are capable, and want to do more, and you just might be suprised.
Even if not, be happy you're actually doing something. I know plenty of co-ops that sit at their desk all day and just twiddle their thumbs.
I had the joy of going to a college with a fairly extensive co-op program. Year round school, alternating semesters of study/work (Antioch College for those who care). While there I had some absolutely wonderful co-op experiences, with managers that saw the talent and the responsibilty and rewarded it with independance. I also had a co-op that was a coffee and copy job. I used my time on that one to polish my programing skills and a few good books.
Co-op are what you make of them first and foremost, the managers second.
It sounds like you've got a pretty decent set-up with at least access to people/engineers. And other posters are right, there's a reason its called work. A lot of it is repetitive and dull. Life is not handed to you, you have to reach out and choke the living *%$# out of it to get what you want.
Erg, not enough coffee yet to be coherant and make a point...
* We dance where angels fear to tread *
-I hear this every Summer: "My son/daughter is a computer whiz! He/She wants to get involoved with computers like you. Do you have any openings?"
-I always say, "No," and three weeks later some kid comes to my office and I am expected to teach him/her everything I know in 8 weeks. My bitterness aside...
-Knowing how to set up a 1337 UT server on your cable modem is great but it doesn't mean you know how to do anything else.
-Recently an intern informed me that he "Invented that ten dot thing." I thought there was a language barrier and offered, "You mean you implemented a LAN with internal addressing?"
-"No, I invented it. It's my idea."
-"You're the guy who invented ten dot?"
-"Yup."
-"Invented?"
-"Yeah."
-I still don't know what he meant exactly and so I put him on phones and desk support; which I needed at the time. He quit three weeks later, I believe he called me a "Big homo-bag, who didn't know shit about the internet," after I blocked some UT site he spent all day on (yes I did tell him to cut it out) while I was out of town. His mother complained that I was "Hording information."
-I think you kids have a great opprotunity in front of you. I certainly didn't have hands-on network experience until after college. You're at a decent place. Grunt work is important. You have to know it all. Not understanding hardware, or not know how users use things will hurt you in the end. Be happy. Learn. Don't spend all day on a UT site flaming a big homo-bag.
---
This
From personal experience as an employeer, we tend to ask co-ops to perform as difficult a job as they are technically qualified to do. Having said that, every employee, co-op or not, will find him/herself performing boring tasks very so often. As Dilbert says, this is the reason why the pay you: if work was all fun they would charge admission prices at the entrance! This is not to say that there aren't unenlightened co-op employers out there who think of co-op students as under-aged janitors, as opposed to trainees, but from what you write yours doesn't seem to be one. The schools I'm familiar with keep tabs on co-op employers, and if they treat their students as sources of menial labor with no training component the employer gets an earful.
Working in a big, bloated corporate environment isn't exactly conducive to learning (I am finishing a B.S. in Math--the CIS program sucked and I am learning more on my own and through work experience) and doing useful, let alone progressive things. But, if you find one person, just one, who knows what they are doing and are doing something you would like to do, follow them. Hound them. Get them coffee. Make them brownies (no hash). But, most importantly, ask them questions. I worked at a place full-time and in the maelstrom that was that job, I had a EXTREMELY brilliant woman to ask about different technologies. It was invaluable. Also, speaking for myself, I learn well that way-one on one, not 300 student lectures.
the deacon...that's all you need to know for now
Keep working hard, make a lasting impression. Don't make it seem as if you are not liking the job or the details of it. You won't want this to be a bad reflection on you after college or wherever you decide to go from here. Most people start out in goofy positions like this. Don't let it get you down and just do your best. Who knows what can happen. If they like your effort, you may end up with a position with them in the future that you really enjoy. The worst thing you could ever do for yourself is close a door.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
after working at a number of large companies with co-ops, nearly every one I have ever worked with things they are going to come right out of school (HS or college) and be put on the absolute highest priority, most fun, sexiest work. They are stunned to find out they are CHEAP LABOR. Most also feel their 18-21 years of life experience along with their 2-3 years of Windoze experience makes them the perfect choice for the toughest, coolest work. What do schools tell these people? They should be telling them you are going to be my bitch for a few months, like it or get out.
After my sophomore year of college, a friend and I both took internships at different companies. At the end of the summer when we compared experiences, he said he was "offended and disgusted" by the work he was expected to do and learned nothing the entire summer. I said that I had a great experience and learned more than I had the previous year at school. When we talked about our summers in more detail, it turned out that we had both spent our summers doing the same thing: fixing software bugs. Sure the work didn't test all of my programming skills but I learned a lot of things that can't be taught in a CS class. I was able to observe how a code base with over 100 source files was managed, I was able to observe the interaction of roles on a large development effort, and I was able to read lots of code written by experienced programmers. My friend expected to be writing new applications and spent his summer pouting because he was offended when he was asked to do maintenance. Not only is this unrealistic given the amount of time programmers spend developing vs. maintaing code, but he missed out on many opportunities to learn things that can't be taught in the classroom.
When violence rules the world outside / And the headlines make me want to cry / It's not the time to just keep quiet
My co-op days were as a 35 year old college student. Much, but not all of what I did was menial. It was of great value to graduate with some real world experience. I just recived an award from my company that includes ca$h and a Carribean vacation for my valuable contributions. Guess what? Much of what I do is still menial and repetative. But not all! If it were I would move on.
That may be true in small organizations, but in a big team environment, sometimes the guys at the low-end of the totem pole get stuck with the crappy duties over and over again. Once you MAKE it up that totem pole, then you have more and more chance to get into the interesting projects. As an IT Director, I know it's tough to keep my guys interested day-to-day and when real projects come up the guys with the most seniority have to have first pick. The only way to fill the rest of the time without losing employees left and right is to give them more freedom in what they do and how they do it.
We may have to go straighten out some dense salesperson on how to get an attachment out of an e-mail every day (sometimes several times a day), but you can balance that by allowing the guys to work on new company-related projects when they have time (with the idea being that they'll come up with some new and innovative way of doing something that'll help the company and shine the spotlight on them) and also flex hours helps! We've had a couple of employees straight out of college with an MIS degree and, to be honest, they were almost completely useless. They sometimes felt that they were wasting time doing menial tasks (HTML grunt work, running reports, copying/archiving files, etc.), but all of these menial tasks produced an experienced MIS person after a year because those are all tasks that we've had to perform at one time or another. Somebody's gotta do it!
After that first year, then you have a chance to move up the totem pole, but don't expect that degree is going to get you anywhere immediately. Even with my BSCS degree, I still need 5+ years experience just to have my job (I have 10). That's where it comes from.
First, do everything they ask of you. Do it quickly, and do it well.
Exactly! Back many moons ago, I had a couple of different coop jobs. Because I could always do what they gave me, and do it faster and with fewer errors than anyone else (and without any grumbling), I was given more interesting work to do.
The full-timers don't want you to waste their time. So they're just going to give you some quick, crappy job to get you out of their hair (the first thing they can think of). So if you do the quick, crappy job quickly (and not crappily) and go ask for more, they'll want you out of their hair again. This time, you'll probably get something a little more involved -- they want you gone for a longer period of time. Eventually, you'll see some patterns in the work you're doing, and you may be able to suggest some small projects for yourself (e.g. writing an automated test or creating some kind of test tool to remove the tedium from running the tests). Eventually (and this may not apply to h.s. students -- things might change in college) you'll start to get treated like a peer.
-bluebomber
The Daily Build
What to do now? There's already a lot of good advice on this board, so I won't repeat. Some of it is going to bruise your ego. Let it sink in, come back to this board a week from now and see if some of it doesn't sound true, once you've had time to get used to the idea.
It may not seem like the greatest now, but getting in your grunt work period now, is an advantage. We all do it, it's just a matter of when and for how long.
I had a similar experience, but I wasn't there for any length of time. It was one of those high-school career days where they parade you around to different work places. They, theoretically, base these "placements" on personality, skills, or desire.
Ostensibly, the career day was intended to show you the "real world" and increase interest in future employment opportunities. Let me tell you, I don't know why they thought I was interested in being a police officer... but I guess it was fun to go to the station.
The next year, when they did the program again, I told my parents I wanted to skip-out. Because, hey, I thought I knew what I wanted to do (computer anything)! Somehow, my mother mentioned this to some people at work and... one thing lead to another... I had permission from both my parents and the school to skip-out and go hang out with the MIS guys at my mom's work.
I didn't know what I'd end up doing there, but I figured it would be computer related -- that was enough for me. Well? You know what? They had me clean out a closet of old computer software, manuals, and hardware! How exciting! What a bummer!
I left that day being disappointed, but (according to my mom) it was somehow worth it because I got to meet some people and see all the different systems they used in MIS and GIS. Overall, though, I was let down.
That is, until a year later (while I was in college), they contacted me to see if I was interested in some temporary full-time work. I was there *one* day, a little over a year previous, but they remembered me.
You can see where this is going: I interviewed, and got the job. I made a decent hourly wage, had fun with the job, and got some resume material and references. It sure made that lousy day of cleaning out an old closet seem a lot more interesting and meaningful.
So, sometimes, those crappy, disappointing experiences are worth it.
There is one other point which I don't think anyone else hit on.
I've been on the "employer" side of several things similar to this. The real problem is trust. In my environment, letting people do real work requires in most cases letting the people have root level access to several unix servers.I'm NOT going to let just anyone off the street have those. In fact, usually I don't give them to an employee until they have been there some time and then only if it is really necessary.
As a result, the first few months are usually what at least we consider grunt work - or more specifically, tasks which don't involve fiddling with the systems at a root-level access.
I suspect in an engineering environment this is similar. You don't want people you have there only a short period of time to be fiddling with pieces of your business which is critical to it's functioning.
Imagine a surgeon in a hospital sending their interns into the operating room to do surgery on patients. Not going to happen.
The only option to let these people do meaningful work is to let them do the work, with a supervisor breathing down their necks. This is going to take longer than it would have if the supervisor would have just done it themselves, and is going to be more costly than if you didn't have the intern. Especially if you are paying the intern anything.
If you were hiring the employee long-term this would be considered training expense, because after a while, the supervisor can let the employee go on on their own.
About the only thing I could think of which might be useful company-wise to use an intern for in the context of the original question is to team up each intern with an engineer, and while you probably can't let the intern do the actual engineering, the intern can do the engineer's "grunt work" such as copying, etc, and the intern will most likely learn a LOT from the engineer they are teamed with.
I feel I am in a position to pretend my opinion on this matter is important and espouse it thus:
I worked with co-op students from, primarily, the high school level. One noticeable way to classify them:
Student 1> "I was watching that guy over there and it looks like he is working on something I would be interested in. I was hoping it would be ok to look over his shoulder and maybe ask a question or two."
Student2 (to his/her friends after work)> " I went to my job co-op today and had to stand around until someone gave me a bunch of boxes to stuff. That place sucks."
You can guess which one is more memorable when it comes time to hiring later in life.
The test I use is the removal test. Who would be most hurt if the co-op program was removed. Industry would survive without the cheap labor as it must. Education would also survive but I can't help but think that it would be less an experience without the opportunity to spend time in the real element. The loss to education is greater than that to industry. Although you feel that it is industry that is somehow benefitting from this exploitation of cheap labor, please remember where you are standing in the first place. Those who take hold and squeeze will get the most from the experience. Those who expect a scripted, curricular experience are missing the boat and will, ultimately, feel the way you do.
I would have to agree. I worked three terms as an engineering summer student at the local power utility. Sure, a lot of what I did could be described as "grunt work", but the experience I gained from my work terms was invaluable.
After working for a while with them, I was put on several larger projects and was able to make genuine contributions to those projects. That was very cool. It's often been said, "no pain, no gain." My work terms taught me how true that is, in that the gain of experience was absolutely worth the months of "grunt work". Also, it helped pad my resume and allowed me to make contacts with other established engineers in the industry.
Hang in there & best of luck in your co-op program!
I was a co-op, too.... And the same thing happened to me. What finally started changing things for me was when I started trying to change things.... I don't mean random .5ass stuff. Find a way to make you job better/easier in some way. For me, that meant automating a tedious process that previously had to be done by hand. Make sure that whatever you do, follow these:
.5ass solutions, activities don't work.
1. It shouldn't cost extra money. The extra storage we required was found spare on unused machines.
2. It shouldn't detract from "normal" duties. YMMV.
3. Present boss/superior/etc with a completed solution or at least a complete plan.
4. Your plan should do something substantial.
I can't think of anything else immediately.
I can't find my car keys. (no a's in email)
Whether you are working in a Real Job or in a Co-op situation, you'll have to do plenty of menial tasks. Your MO should be the same: figure out how to accomplish your assigned tasks very well, especially the ones you hate. Automate them, document them, create a script to get them down (whether in Perl or on a piece of paper for physical tasks). Free your mind from the meniality, get the work done fast, and then look around for cool things to get in on. Don't rely on management to give you cool things to do, find them and do them. As long as you get your work done, and don't disrupt the business in any way, you've got a high-tech playground to experiment in. If it's really horrible, look for alternatives next time around. Heck, one friend of mine actually worked at a software company as a lead developer while he was in school. Of course, he had loads of talent, a metric buttload of knowledge and went after what he wanted. And he rarely complained about the inevitable grunt work, he just got it out the way first, so he could have fun. I learned alot from him.
quit crying and pay your dues!! what do you expect? i'd hate to have you on my team in a few years... me: your assignment is to code this dialog box you: but why can't i work on the core routines? me: because you don't have enough experience you: whaaahhhh...
One thing to remember though: When you find the guy you want to be your mentor,
MAKE SURE HE STICKS AROUND!!!
It does you no good that this guy loves you and will write you the best damn recommendation you've ever seen if he leaves the company by the end of the year!
But other than that, Co-ops and internships are just glorified grunt work. Just make sure you either get a job offer or a good recommendation when you leave.
Busco a alguien que me quiera como yo la quiera.
A master's degree in just about anything will get you in the door for an interview at a lot of places. It demonstrates one's ability to persist at tedious tasks.
don't believe the hype
So, did you actually think that you would be diing all the cool R&D stuff your term there? You're in *high school* for god's sakes, not even College/University. You may know a bit about some things, you may even know enough to hold a conversation aginst many of the other people there, but: a) You're young with no experience, b) More than likely, your knowledge about that field of work is very limited compared to what you need to know to actually do some of the cool jobs, c) Do you actually think that even enngineers do cool stuff like you read in the magazines, every day?
I mean, get real, this is the work world, you work at menial tasks 70% of the time, spend another 20% arguing with management, and only 10% doing the really cool stuff. When you get an education, and come into the real world, you'll realize the you'll be doing the same thing that you are now. Meaningless crap that has to be done one way or another.
So don't complain, as least they aren't making you fetch lunch for them, or are making you give them foot rubs or anything.
-Misao Little Weasel Girl
Most employees fight over the good jobs at work. Do you think they're going to give you something like the flux capicator at work?
In college I worked for a research lab. I swept the floors, painted the pipes, and ran errands. Two years later, after proving my reliability, responsibility, and willingness and ability to learn on my own time, I was working on the multi-million dollar machines creating state of the art devices. I may have wished they let me play with the machines the first day, but it wasn't gonna happen.
As an aside, I accepted this menial job, at cut in pay, after I quit a computer development job at a small company. I got the computer job because I had volunteered at a non-profit to help create and maintain a membership database. It starting helping the more experienced volunteers, but soon I was allowed to work alone.
I know it is frustrating. I know the feeling that you are not fully utilizing your skills. Many years later I still feel that way about half the time. All I can say is that it will get better. Believe it or not, you have been given an opportunity that many people would kill for, and it is yours to use as you please.
On the other hand, all this could be crap and maybe you are being used with no meaningful compensation. Who knows?
Now you see why to get an education. You will find the engineering and science fields are filled with endless repitition. But the repetition will be broken up by things you find interesting. And you usually get to choose where you want to put your efforts. Testing a new chip design or pushing a mop are both boring. But which would you pick.
By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more. - Albert Camus
The very best co-op positions combine two aspects: they teach you l33t bizne55 sk1llz while not letting you screw up anything important. Let me illustrate.
I'm a senior programmer, and my rule of thumb is: Don't give an intern programmer any programming job that you can't afford to completely re-write once they've left. That means no time-critical tasks and nothing important that can't be put off until afterwards.
This is because the skills that they need to make good programs are exactly the ones that we need to teach them: design, documentation, style, and maintainability.
Hopefully by the time they leave they will have acquired some skill in those areas. But even if they did, the code they wrote to learn them is probably crap. If it's flawless then you can count yourself lucky and integrate it. If it's crap, you can count yourself an idiot if you counted upon it being flawless.
Careers should combine three things: what you can do, what you want to do, and what you can get paid for.
But seriously, any job, even you happen to land your dream job, has its' share of boring and repetitive tasks. That's life. The most important thing is that they don't become the norm.
Get over it. You didn't sign up so they could put you in the CEO's chair from the word go, you signed up so you could see what it would be like on the job. This experience you've gained is probably very close to what they'd have you do as a brand-new employee. If you don't like it, pick another field.
Verbing Weirds Language.
Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne
because I never even found a company that wanted to hire me as a future engineering student. I spent my most of my days at a movie theater cleaning up after people and making minimum wage. I would guess that as cheap labor you are still probably making more than someone on the minimum wage pay scale. I did look to switch from that movie job, but no one seemed to know what do with me since I was a high school student. One company offered me a job only to later rescind the offer since they talked to their engineers and they could not figure out what to do with me.
On a similar note, I don't think you do know anything as a high school student that is all that valuable. Sure, some high school students can program, and other can set up a linux box, but I am sure that these students don't really understand the concepts that are fundamental to operating systems or good software design. As someone who worked on one of the most advanced CPU's on the planet, I will remind those high school students that there is still a lot of learning to be done. Until that you demonstrate you are competent with the advanced topics, be happy not to have to sweep napkins off a sticky theater floor.
Perhaps you should look into trying to automate these boring tasks
This is exactly the thing to do. I did a coop at a university and guess what my first project was. Insert these pictures into this document and create a TOC. Gee whiz bang. I took me about a week. The super was amazed. So then i have to do these labs. Basically it was system test. Run this command redirect output to log. Did the first and the second relized hey these are all the same except for minor things. So i says to the super hey is there anything like a dos batch file in UNIX. Yeah, ok so can we script this. Hey thats a great idea, do it. So I end up learning UNIX cmds,bash,awk,regex and a bunch of UNIX flavours.
It could have been a really long and boring term but working on what was given and a bit of thought turned it into a great experience.
So take the lumps, learn everything you can and look for interesting things to do.
The other half of the coin, of course, is that there are co-op employers who are worth your time and those that aren't. Some of the latter aren't worth your time through no fault of your own. It may be that the things you want to do are beyond what they can reasonably teach you in the time available, no matter how skilled you are. They're not necessarily evil, it may just be a bad fit. In any case, if you think they're not worth your time and they act as if you aren't worth theirs (remembering you have to give them reason to believe you are), leave. One of you is right.
The college I attend (you can figure it out from my e-mail address) requires at least five co-op terms as part of their undergraduate program. I have a co-op with a company which designs and manufactures medical devices, a co-op position which I have had since my senior year in high school. In the two years I have worked there, my experiances have been nothing but positive. Yes, I have occasionally done a number of things that could be considered boring, repetitve, etc, but these experiances are more than balanced by the interesting and educational experiances which consume most of my time.
I also have a lot of friends who have co-op positions that they really hate. In most cases, it is either because they are working in a field other than where their interests lie, or they work for an employer whose attitute towards co-op is that they are cheap labor.
When you interview for a co-op position, you should make it a point to talk to the students you will work with. Find out what they do. If they mainly do busywork, you probably don't want the job. Find out how many different departments the student have worked in. There should be pleanty of opportunity to move around, but students should not be bounced from department to department too much, often it can take a couple months to really com up to speed.
Come test your mettle in the world of Alter Aeon!
The first thing you can do is get OVER it!
You ARE cheap labor. I did an internship for a mjor computer company starting with I and ending with M and all I did was watch some drives do stuff.
Take on some side projects if you want. For example, I designed a web-page for the Interns at that site. Another option is to get a mentor at the company. Someone who can show you the ropes.
You can't expect to come in and do really awesome work all the time. In an ideal world, it'd be nice, but it just ain't taht way. You're probably getting paid more than any of your other friends, so enjoy it!
For what it's worth, I think my experiences may even have been valuable enough to share..
I worked for [insert relatively well-known semiconductor manufacturing firm here]. Before going, I did as much homework as I could in that field to fill in what gaps I thought I could. As soon as I arrived and got a handle on what my position would entail, I set up for myself a list of things to be learned before I left. While my position wasn't particularly menial, I did end up with an awful lot of down time... (Lesson one: Most good work happens in teams, so plan work to fill time gaps while waiting for teammates to complete their segments)
During this down time, I sought out different people, from my section and from others, and tried to learn as much as I could about how the business worked, how this company in particular worked, how the industry worked, how machine X worked, etc. A co-op serves two real purposes: 1, the company gets a lower-paid employee to do many things a full-time employee could do at a somewhat more closely supervised level AND can evaluate this employee for potential full-time employment in the future; 2, the co-op can evaluate the company, industry, and specific position as a future career, and can (and is expected to) use this opportunity as not only a job, but a learning experience.
So, even though my primary job function was to work on a handful of control projects (which were important; DEFINITELY focus on your work first), I had opportunity to learn Perl and SQL, work with developing some data access software, learn to use a half-dozen major software packages, poke my nose into at least half of the unit processes in semiconductor manufacture, and learn bits and pieces of the hows and whys of computer integrated manufacturing. Not bad considering I was drawing a paycheck the whole time...
The upshot is.. er.. well, how many times in the future are you going to get paid to not know what you're doing? Take this as a learning experience, and get everything you can from the experience.
seven two six five
seven four six one seven
two six four two e
Every message I read has been "suck it up!" or "that's life!" or "welcome to something!" which sounds like the ruminescences of lots of bitter, bitter, bitter people. Except for the ones like "volunteer for everything!" and "ask nicely!", which sound like those from suckers. You want a tip? Here's what you do...
You're a coop. Now, I'm not sure how well this works for high-schoolers compared to college students, but I just finished up a great 8 month coop, and this is why. The place I worked had a lot of coops, but they only had one or two from my university. In other words, they needed to appease me to stay in good relations with my school, because a single, hardworking, creative, young, enthusiastic person like yourself, when pissed off, is a threat. Don't forget it. With that in mind, I took the jobs I wanted, avoided the jobs I didn't, came to work late somedays, left early others, and in general got away with all kinds of shit that a regular employee never could. I took pains to never cross the line so that any action on the company's part would be justified, but within those limits I got to write my own terms.
Forget what the rest of these suckers tell you. Life's not like that. Work's not like that. Either enjoy what you're doing, or quit and find something better. Have you seen OfficeSpace yet? "We don't have a lot of time on this world." Get busy livin, or get busy dyin.
at least my name's not fartmaster =)
I'm sensing a little bit of built up stress and aggression here. My diagnosis? Unsatisfied with your job.
What has working your ass off for the Man gotten you? If you don't mind a little constructive criticism, you seem a little tense, your interpersonal skills leave a little something to be desired, and with a name like fartmaster, I'm gonna go ahead and assume you've got self-esteem problems, especially if you're making such a good salary. Come back from a hard day at the office and need to blow off a little stress by flamebaiting on slashdot?? That's a little sad, man.
Considering how little regard it's popularly believed that employers have for their employees these days, I think it's cute that you're willing to take a stand for upper management everywhere.
Thanks for posting.
I did the co-op thing in college for the phone company. The people I reported to were bordering on incompetent and I had full access within a week of coming on board. I successfully wrecked havoc for a full semester but learned a hell of a lot. They paid me as an entry-level engineer as a junior in college (30,000/yr in the early 90's). I loved it and learned a lot.
Fast forward, summer of 2001. I am the director of development for a huge corporation. I am in charge of bringing in the interns for "cheap tech labor" in the words of my boss. I got a mix of high school and college students. I gave them all projects that they did not know how to do. "Write me an internal web page that displays the following calculations. Here's the server's ftp info, the database logon and a computer with all the software a geek could want with unlimited internet access." Not a single one failed me all summer. I didn't ask them to launch the space shuttle, only do what a programmer with a little experience should be able to do.
I don't know what the circumstances are at your company but likely, the people in charge don't know how to utilize you. Our society expects little to nothing from our youth (as a 30 something geezer) and that is our mistake/loss. This co-op is just an extension of that.
So, in answer to the question: A successful internship program pushes the limits of the intern's potential (resulting in cheap labor, granted) but is challenging and rewarding enough to make the trade off worth it for the intern.
But for unfortunate circumstances like yours, there are a couple of things you can do:
1. Talk to your liason teacher. Co-op is still a course and there's a teacher in charge of it who monitors it all. Tell him/her about your concerns.
2. Be aware that managers may not be familar with dealing with co-op students. They may not understand that you are cheap labour. If this is the case, I doubt that they would listen to you if you complained to them, but I'm sure your liason teacher would have much more influence.
Remember that co-op is supposed to be a learning experience. If you determine that such is not the case with your placement, keep a written record of tasks that you had to do, and go over it in a non-confrontational with officials at your school. Go over it with your parents, too. Sooner or later, someone in charge will talk to the people at your placement have something done about your predicament. If the managers are not receptive, it's not unlikeley that your school will pull the plug on that employer and move you somewhere else.
O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Law:
Be an eager beaver. To be seen you must go out and meet the people that you work with. Always ask questions and be interested in what the topics of conversation are. People will then more readily include you in things. If you are working on a project make sure you ask as many questions as you can but dont do it in an annoying I can't do this on my own way. Ask things showing that you are looking to enhance or upgrade the work you are currently doing. This will make you know in your company and full time employees will pick up on this and try and request you for their projects. I wish you luck in your co-op expeirence
_________________________________________ Stuff to Know Provided by Pimprin _________________________________________
Someones a bit cynical. The trick to co-ops is to go with small companies. The smaller the company, the more responsility you get. That principal has worked for me and just about everyone that I know.
Why were they only 10 week stints? That's barely enough time to find your desk and turn on your computer. A four month term is probably minimal, and an 8 month term is even best.
Let me disagree a little with that view of yours. Though it is true that uninteresting tasks are part of our daily job, it is not the case 100% of our time: there is almost definitely an interesting and teaching side to our jobs. So when a company claims that students are welcome to participate to an engineering project, they should also be given interesting duties on top of the braindead stuff. Otherwise it is no longer a true engineering project.
You have the choice as a student to enjoy your student life and leave the stress matters to later which is fine (otherwise they will regret their student life). But if students are worried because they want to have interesting things to do, then there are plenty of ways. Why not taking part of an open-source project ? Why not working on certifications ? As a recruiter, I always have a much better impression of open source people and certified students because that shows a strong will to learn for the sake of making progress. They are the same people who can work independently, make wise decisions and make a project be successful. Of course that does not pay for your moppet at the end of your internship, but when you start your real professional life, your salary will very likely be 50% more than all your friends because of your experience and the potential that you show. So it's a longer term prospect.
É que os desafinados também têm um coração
I have also found myself in a similar situation with a coop at my college. I enrolled in the program to gain more experience in my field of study (comp. sci.) I am not complaining about the company or coworkers -- I really like them, however the job functions that they indicated that I would be preforming (database work) has been modified into data entry. I know that job functions change as the project changes and other factors get modified, but it is discouraging to be doing extremely basic tasks that someone with very little experience could be performing. I am trying to learn as much as I can despite my circumstances, but it is difficult to both the drone work that has been assigned to me and learn new things at the same time. I just wish that they could have been a little more up-front about what type of work they really wanted me to be doing.
There are a few things to do/think of: 1. Since you have some work experience, you often can leverage this in a real job to not get as much grunt work.
2. Volenteer for every little cool thing...you will seem motivated and will be givern more cool stuff. Be a go getter. Then you will find yourself in more interesting areas.cause you went and got that.
3. Ask to do more interesting work. Often you will get it if you ask.
4. Use the skills you learn in solving problems and interacting with people in an adult way to run programs at your school and in your community. You will find yourself more capable then many of your peers, and you will be able to leverage this to do better things in and out of your job.
Want to see every step I took to start my company? http://www.rowdylabs.com/blogs/pitchtothegods
The job of making sure that students have a rewarding co-op experience really falls upon the school to perform, but as a participant, you should be in a good position to influence how future co-op arrangements are put together.
The experiences I'm about to describe are from my college co-op program, your ability to duplicate this in a H.S. environment may vary, although many of the principles should still be applicable.
Maintaining a good co-op program is hard work. The college needs to find a large pool of companies looking for co-op students, and a large pool of students looking for co-op companies. So the job of an office is already cut out for them, having to search all around for a large pool of companies, and surveying them to find out if they will actually give (or at least claim so) the students a worthwhile experience. Our co-op office was quite good at this, bringing in a large number of opportunities every year, and creating a very efficient interview system so that students could go through a large number of companies, and vice versa, in a very efficient manner, brokered by the school.
The second part, once the job has commenced, is oversight. About 1/3rd of the way through the work period, administrators from the office went out to all of the job sites (companies participating were required to comply with this) to check up on the students and on the companies. They'd interview the student's manager(s) and find out what they student was doing and if they were performing up to expectation. They had a survey sheet for them to fill out so that results could be correlated with other students at other companies. They'd then interview the student and find out how their experience was going, whether htye were satisfied, and also had a survey forthem to fill out. The point of this was, to make the program as strong as possible, they had to amke sure that poor-performing students were taken out of hte program in order to maintain a good relationship with the companies. This offered the companies protection against wasting money paying a marginal student (who was not really taking advantage of their opportunities) and helped bring companies on board. This offered protectino to the students also, since if they were being abused, used as cheap labor, or otherwise not getting a worthwhile experience at the company, they could return to school and the company would be terminated from the program.
The third part, was a post-work-session followup with both teh student and the company. The process was similar to the mid-work-review, except that it was usually done over the phone with the company and in writing for the student.
The goal of all of this, is to create a balanced program that benefitted all stakeholders. In order to get the best companies, they had to make sure that the students were a good fit and make sure that they were serious. In order to get hte best students, they had to make sure that they had the best companies who weren't going to use the studnets merely as "cheap labor". This creates a "positive feedback" scenarior where each strong point recinforces itself and makes the program stronger over time.
The difficulty, is getting such a system "jump-started". My school's co-op program has a long and venerable history as one of hte best co-op programs out there, and they have a great amount of effort invested in keeping it that way. Getting a program started is often difficult, becuase you need to "sell" the value of the program to new companies and students who haven't worked with your program before.
There's no easy quick fix to the problem you're encountering, because neither you nor your school is necessarily in a very strong position to demand changes yet. However, based on your description, this is probably not a company that your school would want to do business with again. A hard part is that your school may be afraid of losing companies, even if they really are no good for the program. It's hard to get into the mindset where you really try to build a strong program in the long-term, and are willing to give up short-term gains in favor of long-term goals.
I agree, to a certain extent, with the "tough...get over it...pay your dues" advice here. But here are two pieces of more helpful advice, based in part on a similar situation I had years ago just out of high school.
1) First of all, grab someone and tell them what you told us. In my case, 3 weeks into a 5 week program, someone in charge was shocked when they were told what I was doing, and I was immediately moved to much more interesting work.
Even if that doesn't work...
2) Remember this rule forever: Knowledge is Good. While you're at this place, touch and use every piece of equipment you can. Ask every question that pops into your mind. Take tours, guided or otherwise, of every corner and every room you can get your nose into. Try to get through the locked doors. Maybe even sit in on a meeting with the suits. If nothing else, it may get you out of the menial tasks for a while. And you may be surprised when down the road you find yourself saying "Oh yeah, I did|saw|heard that when I was at XX."
Scratch-o-Matic
Evil is the money of root.
That's what it is called. Is it a lot of fun, no, and are you being used to your best ability, maybe not, but this is a business. In school, you are given opportunities to prove yourself.In business, you find those on your own. My first job when I was 15 was working for a summer camp digging, cleaning and maintaining a couple hundred outhouses. But I was the best damn outhouse digger in the whole place, and three summers later I was the youngest area director in the companies history, with a staff of five, the ear of the company president, and a whole lot more room to play. Did the same thing at my last job as a field service tech. Told the above story my first or second day, said "after a job like that there is no way I can ever take someone that seriously when they say they have a shit job for me.." Busted tail, and three years later was the head of the seasonal tech staff at a major theme park, and only 20yrs old. Now I'm looking for a new job... Moral of the Story: Don't expect your employers to automatically see what you are capable of and work you to that limit. Show them that your capabilities have no limits.
Personally speaking, cooperative education has changed my life for the better. In highschool I was volunteered to work at a photofinishing retail store. It wasn't my cup of tea, but I procrastinated in picking out my own choice of brew.
Anyhow, I completed a semester of the co-op work, learning plenty of photofinishing and ended up working for one of Canada's largest photofinishing retalilers selling photographic-related equipment and processing film. At some point I earned enough money to take part time UNIX courses where I eventually met a guy who worked for a large ISP. Bam, new job instantly.
Four years later I became a network administrator for that same large ISP.
Moral of the story? Though you're working for free, consider that the experience you're gathering is worth its weight in gold for the progress of the career you plan to pursue. That's a good something to power up the resume with. Being a student, I'm sure you could use the resume fuel as well.
ICEPHREAK
Damn you!
Yeah, right.
Entry level jobs (even engineering) is a lot of tedious, repetitous tasks.
Amen to that. An entry level engineering job is often tedious and repetitive work. Before I got my professional certification, I did a lot of CAD work as an engineer's assistant because "I was good at it". If you don't think CAD work is tedious and repetitive, trying doing it for three years.
But there is also another point that I think needs to be made. Most co-op students usually stay on at a company for a semester (which is usually 4-6 months). There isn't the time to get co-op students familiarized in several aspects of the work, simply because the real employees have work to do on their own. If you get lucky and get posted at the same company after school or for more co-op terms, you might get to learn more about the job.
But there is a finer wisdom in repeating tasks. For one, there is enough motivation to make the task more efficient.
I agree with Wav...Cliff, what is it you are looking for in this job? Sounds to me you have a heck of a start in the high-tech sector. I know what my first tech job was like...doing COBOL work on an antiquated IBM 370, in the Canadian gov't! If you want to see brain-dead work, there it is. I was half-way through my term there, and they didn't have anymore projects for me. I spent three termd as a gov. grunt, and it almost killed my chances at getting a cool tech job like yours...I eventually got one, but I spent the entire time doing testing and validation, cause you learn the most doing that. And a bit of coding, but coding does not an engineer make you know. As many ppl have said, your job exp. is what you make of it; if you feel you got short-changed, then you won't really know what u have until you get a crappier job....and believe me, for the job you have right now, at least 10 ppl would love to do what ur doing right now, so don't knock it.
Believe me, it will be worth it just so people wont keep taking a piece of me. StJohnsWort
It sounds like they DID live up to their side of the bargain. This is as good as any co-op experience I have heard of, ESPECIALLY for high school level.
What to do? Go to your supervisor and say "In ADDITION to what we are already doing, is there a way we may expose ourselves to more of the (engineering related items) we were working on before?"
I'd be shocked if they didn't respond favorably.
---"What did I say that sounded like 'Tell me about your day?'"---
The co-op started out great, but it got boring, so I went to see my manager. She was an older woman, mid 30's (I even had her son in one of my classes), but she still looked pretty, long blonde hair and she wore short skirts a lot.
I told her that I needed more challenging work, I was a bright young man, full of energy, and in relatively good shape for a computer nerd.
She leaned forward, and I got a nice look down her blouse. She crossed her legs and her skirt rode up a little on her thigh, and through narrowed eyes she mentioned that had a particular position she wanted to try on me.
Sorry to hear you're having such a bad experience. There are a couple of things you should probably look into. First is what exactly was "promised" to you, and what did you think they promised. Remember that as high-school co-ops, you are probably second from the bottom on the totem pole, barely above the janitorial staff, and just under the college co-ops. You haven't had any of the technical classes that the college kids have had, and even if you guys are pure Einsteins, the time it would take to teach you how wave guides and optical switches function, let alone how they are built, would be a huge drain on the time and resources of the company you work for. The college kids don't have it much better.... They've had some of the theory, enough to be dangerous, but not enough to be really helpful (Me being one of those college kids just a short time ago). Second, remember that even if you flew through college and got your Ph.D. before your first job, you still have to put in the 'grunt' and 'gopher' jobs until you learn how things around the company actually happen. Keep your eyes and ears open. If you see something lying around, read it. If the engineers around you are talking, listen (and if they don't mind, ASK QUESTIONS!!!). Show a real interest in what's going on around you... break out of your high school shell, and into their's. The easiest thing to do is just put in everything you've got. If it's a true co-op, you don't have any homework to worry about, so ask if you can take tech manuals home. Knowing how to do more will make you more valuable to the company, and get you better positions (as well as looking cool on your resume's 'skills' section). Do your work quick so you can take on new tasks. You'll get out of the experience whatever you put in. And the more you put into it, the better the return. If you put in 100%, that's what you'll get. If you put in more than that (110%), you'll get more than what you started with out (120%), but put in less (90%) and you'll get even less back (80%). Granted, my numbers aren't exactly scientific, but just my own personal experience through my time as a lowly serf.
I suspect that one of these choices is incorrect. Correct.
... my first high skool co-op position. It rocked - working in the IT Dept for the Engineering Dept at a local university.
It worked out wonderfully - and I ended up getting hired on after as a part timer. Then a full time position opened up across campus, and my boss recomended me. I got the job.
Heh. My co-op job ended up resulting in me taking a break for a year to "work" at the university.
It was great fun... I hear that doing that kind of thing is/was a big nono, though. Still, I had a blast. Great experience.
I am going to have to agree with the majority of the other posts on this topic. You should really make the most of the opportunity. At least you are not flipping burgers, which by the way, is really fantastic job that makes you realize WHY COLLEGE IS SO DAMN IMPORTANT! In all seriousness, follow the suggestions above. Talk to the engineers, read manuals, look for extra projects. You are a Co-op. You are cheap labor. You exist to free up the time of the engineering staff. You should expect being a grunt to be about 80 to 90% of your job. However, generally CO-OP programs set up between companies and schools are very well though out. In fact I have set up CO-OP programs for two other companies with my former college (Purdue). It is a very rigorous process. Purdue required that a company apply to the CO-OP program and must provide a schedule for growth of the students. It is assumed that the student will spend many semesters at the company and with each co-op term the student should have learned more in classes. So, we had to show how we planned to use and build upon that students knowledge. Perhaps you should ask your school what they required from companies participating in the program. If the school has no such program, have them contact the Purdue CO-OP office...or just download the application form and use it! Then again, if you're not happy with what you are doing, then ask your supervisor for some other challenging work...just make sure you've proven your abilities in any other task you were asked to do.
I was a "technical intern" for a large semiconductor company, and their program was laid out no better than the one you describe.
We were all trained on a lot of the test equipment, then dumped in the class 1 clean room with a ton of employees who had no idea we were coming.
Some of us were told "go stand over there." That could last hours, literally. I stood next to a wall (there is about 1 chair per 50 employees in the clean room) for 4 hours one time, went to lunch, stood for another 3 before I got a break.
Just a personal note: I quit and got a job for the University in their computer support area. Less pay, less hours (clean room was 12 hour shifts), but a lot more livable.
Intern != cheap labor.
I go to school at Northeastern. There the co-op program is mandatory for graduation. Unfortunately, the majority of first co-ops, as with those first jobs (i.e. MickyD's) are going to be grunt labor type jobs. My first co-op experience was as a Helpdesk operator at a law firm. You want to talk about boring... Anyway, all I can say try to develop things that semi-automate or shorten the amount of time you spend on your job. Then show your boss how productive you've become and ask if you can have more responsibilities. Repeat as necessary. Even if you don't get a raise, the experience will be worth every penny. Give it time, it's taken me 3 years off and on within the co-op program to make it to the level of semi-valued employee.
I'm afraid that is the life of a coop. Even college students (I worked for a university that is known for its coop program) end up doing grunt work while on coop. It comes with the territory.
;-)
That said, the key to getting the most out of a coop is the same as any other job. Watch what people around you are working on. Ask questions. Look for something that you'd like to be doing, and then volunteer to do it. No, this doesn't make your job easy. It means doing MORE work, and you will probably still have to the grunt work. But depending on your supervisor, you might ALSO end up doing something more chalenging.
Even if you don't get to actually work on a project, you can still learn by paying attention to what's going on around you.
And don't hesitate to suggest to your boss (in a polite way) that you would like to do more. You might just get what you want.
Of course, you might get _more_ than you bargained for.
That is basically what happend to me when I started out many moons ago. My 1st job was in support, I was hired because of my knowledge. By the time I left we had to read every response off a screen from thier supported data base, and were not allowed to troubleshoot on our own. If it wasn't on the screen we couldn't help. The 1st day that went into effect was my last day there. Since I have moved onto bigger and better things. Everyonce in awhile I call back with a "new set of problems" when I start hating my job, Then I remember it could be worse.
I guess the moral here is to stick it out, do a good job and keep asking for more responsibility. Nothing pissed me off more than seeing a co-op playing solitare instead of pounding the bushes for stuff to do. Having been on both sides of the coin, I can say that 'industry experience' is worth it, whatever you're doing - especially in high school!
Engineering is 10% creative and 90% crap work. What you should take from this is crap work makes you money, the rest is just fun stuff you get to do for a while.
In the real world, money rules. You will find you _always_ have to justify your existance to your employer in terms of how you make a company money. That is the lesson you should learn. Doing the crap work will distinguish you from your peers. Trust me on this.
-- Mean People Suck
.... it seems like you are getting a top-notch education with respect to: (1) how high-tech companies function, (2) how engineers are truly perceived within the industry, and (3) what an engineering-related career at a corporation really means. Come to think of it, there is a source that can answer all of your questions. Just click on the following URL: http://www.dilbert.com :)
Ok, we know we've been giving you the crappy jobs, so here is your next assignment. We need a design for a new automobile engine that runs on water and we need it next week Monday at the latest. I want to be looking the the AutoCad drawings by 2pm.
-Your Boss
What is pirate software? Software for inventory of stolen treasure?
My experience had lead me to believe that unless you run your own business, you will end up being somebody's pee-on no matter what you might be qualified to do. Sadly, also people see age as a factor, since you are in high school, it has probably been determined by someone that you are "too young" therefore "inexperienced" and "unable" to do certain things. Piss on them. Start your own company, and put them out of business.
I've had nearly the same exact experience at my last co-op provided by Drexel University. The want ad billed the job as 'PC Tech Specialist' that promised cutting-edge work in many computer related diciplines but the real job mainly consisted of moving boxes in the basement, upgrading Pentium 75s to meet the minimum requirement for their Office 2000 rollout (which we had to perform on all 700 machines), and nothing (going to work and browsing the web for 2 weeks with nothing to do). So far, my experience being a co-op is nothing but crap. We're used for cheap labor or labor that no one else wants to do. We're not treated like regular employees, but more like kids. Experiences like these make co-op seem like a benefit for the university and the employer, not the student.
'When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.' -HST
What is resume going to say?
Student co-op with bug high-tech company: duties included sweeping floor, fetching coffee and untangling cords.
Probably not.
You will use this experience to load your resume, legitimately, with experience that few people of high school age can have.
Don't forget about the contacts you will make. They might even lead you to a real job someday.
There are people out there with university degrees in the field who have to do this sort of menial labour. One simply can't expect to be handed a breadboard and told "have fun", because the market just doesn't have a place for many people of that sort. That's something you do in your basement for kicks, not something a corporation hires you to do.
I was one of a few students that was accepted into the co-op program with Ontario Hydro. I worked at the Western Nuclear Training Center as a computer tech for a year, and yet I spent most of my time unpacking boxes and tying up cables in classrooms.. I really enjoyed the year however.. It was all work that needed to be done, and I got along well with the other students I was working with, and since we were doing relatively simple work, we had time to talk. I learned a lot about car stereos that year, and even had a chance to work in one of the shops and learned how a laser printer worked.. fun stuff. Not the most challenging, but since we were unpacking stuff, moving computers, typing help desk calls into the database.. it allowed the techs there to concentrate on more important stuff like setting up a new server, upgrading the computers to P166s, rolling out NT4 (this was a few years ago) and wiring up the LAN to include new classrooms.
;)
Anyway, I mostly didn't get to do that I thought I would.. but I still had fun and learned a bit.. too bad I barely learned anything about what I was supposed to from working there!
I got my first job at 16 at a copy shop, this was nothing but bitch work but it did get me some work experience for my resume. My next job was at 18 as a surveyor's assisstant (more popularly called rod man). The fact that I had prior work experience helped me get this job. This one proved to be a lot more interesting, I finally got to use some of that trig I learned in highschool. Also, though I was initally hired to do grunt work (pound stakes, take measurements, that kind of thing), as I showed interest in other things I was allowed to do them. By the time I left for cellege most of the time I ran the gun (the instrument that actually takes the measurements) while my crew cheif did most of the physical work because he like that sort of stuff better.
So college came around, for the first semester I didn't work but the 2nd semester my roomate convinced me to apply for a job as assisstant webmaster at our school paper, which I got. Well this was still kind of a bitch work job (do what the webmaster told you to) but it was technology oriented. I HTML skills got about 100x better during this time. Then, in the summer the webmaster (who had become my roomate at this point) decided to quit, so I got promoted to webmaster. As webmaster I got to do a whole lot including redesign the site, and do all sorts of special projects. During this time I also took second jobs as network administrators first at the department of Neurology, then at the department of Dance. The job as webmaster was what helped me get those, as it showed I really had technical experience. Also, along the way I picked up some industry certifications. I worked as webmaster for about a year (till December 2000).
Now, I decided I was tired of being a webmaster, networks is what I wanted to do. So I applied for, and got a job at CCIT, our computer and network centre on campus, and now work with the Network Operations groups. Well, I still get assigned bitch work, but there is plenty of fun stuff too. Also (most importantly) I'm learning tons about routing and switching and this all looks great on my resume.
So here I am, 20 years old, with a pretty cool job doing what I like, and it all started just getting a simply summer job at a copy shop stuffing envalopes. Basically I am just trying to let you know that just because the work is a bit boring now, doesn't mean it can't be a spring board to much greater things. Unfortunately, highschool students don't seem to be all that highly valued by many people, in highschool I couldn't even let the school district have me fix computers for free much less get paid. However, what you are doing shows a lot of initive and believe me, people WILL notice later. Hang in there, and try to get as much out of your job as you can.
That's why it's called work. The benefit of working in engineering is that you're a gimp that actually gets things accomplished. If you don't like it, go buy a blue shirt and khakis and go speak marketing bull for the rest of your life.
You wish to learn as much as you can in a particular field in order to get a leg up on the competition (your peers) and eventually get hired by the corporation of your choice or start your own business. You know that interesting cutting-edge projects and challenging tasks will help further your goal.
The company, on the other hand, wishes to increase its profits. The company wants its experienced engineers to focus on the most challenging tasks to solve problems in the shortest amount of time, and therefore ship product faster. Hiring co-ops allows the easier non-critical tasks to be completed 'in the background' without having to 'waste' an experienced and knowledgable engineer's time. It also keeps the engineer happy, because said engineer is often less likely to leave the company if the work is rewarding.
Co-ops often must strive to find a balance between these two (often disparate) goals.
Another point to consider is the length of your co-op term. Tasks handed to you are hugely dependant on whether you are at the company for 2 weeks, 4 months, or 8 months. The longer you stay, the more valuable you are to the company. The more valuable you are, the more likely the chance the company will give you more enjoyable and challenging tasks.
Hey that shouldnt matter the company will probaly pay for school. I am coop'n at umm Fast Little Transistors Thats not the name but I dont want to get fired. Well I get paid good and they are taking care of my tution. I work damn hard doing little crap, but when you get to college and that tution hits you would do alot to get it paid. Trust me it also can be used to negoitate a higher salary at your next job.
The company doesn't owe you anything. If you don't like your experience there, quit.
I'm going to break the general trend of comments which are telling these kids to suck it up and get used to getting shit on because they are young.
The National Science Foundation offers a wide variety of grants for undergraduates and high school students to perform research at major academic institutions. I did one at Carnegie Mellon's computer science department after my sophomore year at college, and it was fantastic. My mentor basically handed me a problem that didn't have a clear solution, and told me to find one. I got to draw on the resources of some of the most brilliant computer scientists in the world to assist me. A good friend of mine spent 9 months working at Lawrence Livermore National Labs in California, and is co-authoring two papers, one of which he is lead author on.
A couple of cautions: not all of these programs are amazing, but they are reviewed every couple of years, so the overall quality is pretty high. Two, academia has its own variety of office politics and things that suck (think grant writing)- but there are many institutions out there that give smart, young people a chance to prove themselves, which I believe is what you want most. I would highly recommend looking into these opportunities at the NSF website. Best of luck to all of you.
I've done 2 co-ops thru my college at the same company... my first co-op was software QA, I sat and clicked until it broke then I wrote a bug report for it and filled it with screen shots and other data... it sucked doing it eight hours a day, but I did it... my second co-op I was an apps engineer, I went out to the field and actually worked with the customers, software and hardware... these were trips around the country for days on end... sometimes I'd work 13 hours in a day, sometimes I'd work 2... but it was always interesting and fun. the point of the story is that it sucks at first, but it generally gets better. My advice to all of you who say that "work sucks forever" is to find another damn job! Work shouldn't be total ass all the time... if you hate your job then get another one, maybe in a different field... if I didn't enjoy working with electronics, I'd try software, if that didn't work I'd become an auto mechanic, but I'd find SOMETHING that I can do all day and then go home happy (most of the time anyway).
i've had 5 co-op experiences throughout high school and college. a few of my first ones were really boring, however once you get a few under your belt you become a very valuable individual. especially if you have marketable computer skills. at that point you can hit up some job fairs and really score an impressive salary and be choosy about your projects. it all takes a little experience and a good resume. just tough it through the first co-op or two.
i have to say that i agree with the question to some extent... no, a co-op should not expect to be working on the latest and greatest product or technology, hell, most grads dont get to work on a version 1.0, and its true that 90% of any engineers day is spent making license plates, eh? however, i think that if your spending your day making coffee then its a complete waste of everybodies time. i admit i was incredibly lucky when i did my internship, i was given a blue sky project to develop some technology that had been on a back-burner for a few years and none of the devs had time to work on it. but since then ive worked at 2 companies who responsibly take students on, and the start-up im now at is getting its first co-op next month. obviously part of the reason we are getting an undergrad is because of cost and commitment. i will, however, be trying hard to insure their time here is not entirely spent making coffee, and that they do something that is usefull, both to us and them. in addition, if its part of a degree course, the university / college has a responsibility to insure the students are getting something usefull out of it. p (big up the recoil.org massive)
When an employeer hears that a high school or college co-op is coming aboard, he/her has two things in his/her mind.
One is to tell this person whatever he or she wants to hear. Don't fall victim to promised training courses on cutting edge technology that you'll never apply at the company.
The other is to get them to do the dirty work and/or fill in for the "SMART" person who just quit his/her job! Don't get under paid and do more work then the regular full-time or contract worker does less and gets paid 4 to 6 times more than you do. Co-op's are only cheap labor and maybe future employees. Look for a position or create a position in the field that you're interested in. Don't work for a paycheck, work to learn and have fun!
Much of the mindless work can be automated with the right implementation of the SEI CMM *modified* processes in place with less paperwork. Your generation has caused most of this useless grunt work on the SE side of the fence, old-timer. Administration could be simplified if more ZENWorks like tools were avaiable for remote admin. Hardware is another monster that I don't have enough time to write about. "We don't live in a paperless society, we live in a brainless society!" - D I was already responsible for a bunch of interns and new hires right after I was hired out-of-college. I told them the truth. This work sucks, I could find middle school students to accomplish these tasks! I'm outta here." The "SMART", intelligent enough to leave, left and the mindless grunts stayed. In the near future when I start my own business, I'll know who to hire and not to hire.
Damn this is hilarious. Really what do you expect, your a hs student!! I am a college student and we get coops too. Guess what, we still get dick work and we know a shitload more than you guys do from hs. The reason is, is that you and I both don't know enough to really do anything of research and other stuff accept to read measurements off a scope or write a few miniscule programs. All I gotta say is that when you graduate from hs you don't know jack shit about engineering. Your view of engineering is limited to what you learn in your shotty physics and chemistry classes. Be glad you got a job doing dick work at a decent company, instead of flipping burgers at mcdonalds.
Getting a co-op isn't about getting a kickass job. It's about having a shitty job in business, and learning how businesses work. The lessons you'll learn will tend to be more of the "how to be an effective employee" type than the "gee whiz cool" type.
Think about this... you're getting paid to learn how to work. Companies don't hire co-ops to get anything productive done, they do it to do a favor to the co-ops.
--
"Don't trolls get tired?"
That sounds like a friend of mine who got a computer grunt job at a government agency. His boss was gone so often, he had to make up useful things for himself to do. (No, reading Slashdot doesn't count.) Some places really don't take advantage of the people they have working (or volunteering) for them.
This advice may not apply for your situation, but in reality everyone needs things to fill the gap. The workplace tends not to keep you engaged fully or utilize your skills well, so having some personal goals and projects is helpful. You might want to pick things that emphasize your core skills in case a conflict of interest is ever brought up.
Plenty of people will tell you ways to be assertive or this and that, but I say make good personal use of the time. Build a side business, hobby or some kind of thing with the spare time.
If they keep your day completely filled with mundane tasks and you don't have much in the way of spare time then I would politely approach them with suggestions and a gameplan. Don't go to them and just tell them your vision, be prepared to say how you could put it in action, but by the same token if they aren't interested don't stress it because it is their loss to not utilize you. At least this way you can list on your resume that you "recommended innovated ways of improving productivity." :-)
-- Solaris Central - http://w
Reading over some of these posts, I see initiative as a recurring theme. And it makes me wonder: Do any companies have an unvoiced or unconscious goal of career Darwinianism to identify who's got the moxie to go after additional, more interesting challenges? The drones would get their drudgery and paychecks too, but they wouldn't necessarily get the offer letter upon graduation.
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
While I'm sure you're all competent, I don't think you'll find many companys will give you much of a high risk job until you have more than proven yourself (read gone to college, and gotten a little more experience than your 18 years has afforded you). You may not be in an extremely challenging environment, but the skill here is to be able to do an exeplary job even when the work is brainless. Trust me, if you can prove you are an excellent worker, and can deliver things on time, then you'll be given more challenging projects to work on.
Zaed...
Boss #1 Hey, we need someone to do this drudgery
Boss #2 We won't be able to get anyone to do that work, its menial and crap
HR Dweeb Hrm, I just got this information from WestNorthSouthern University, and they have a co-op program. They earn 'credit' for doing work for us, if we give them good reviews, and its dirt cheap!
Boss 1&2 in unison Brilliant!
And what is it that makes your idealistic views believe boring, repetitive tasks aren't the real world? Stop into your local research facility and ask how many of the guys cleaning test tubes have Masters degrees.
[I expect our narrator to continue thusly:]
At that point, I was sweating with excitenment. I was sweating so bad, & I was afraid she'd smell my sweat & lose interest. But she just gave me this look, & I decided to go with the flow.
``You can keep a secret, can't you?" she asked, her voice a husky whisper.
``Uh, yeah," I said, trying to sound mature & knowing that I failed.
``Good." She reached behind her desk, & brought forward a waste paper basket that had been covered with a binder, & put it in front of me.
``What's this?"
She quickly sat down, & looked as if she was gong to cry. ``I just found out I'm pregnant, & got sick earlier with morning sickness. I need someone to clean up the evidence, & get me some pickles & ice cream on the double."
Needless to say, this special assignment did not lead me to further technical ability, although I did learn how to quickly clean puke out of those plastic waste paper baskets. And where all of the grocery stores were in near the business park. In return, she was able to hide the fact of her pregnancy for another three months form her employer.
[well, I doubt our narrator will write the above, but SMPs to 8086s he will end his tale with the following words:]
But she gave me the best review & recommendation I ever received from a work place.
Geoff
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p
Here's what I'd do. Realize you still have a good thing going here. This is excellent work experience even if you're doing the dog's work now.
Talk to the boss and tell them you like what you're doing and understand that alot of the repetive work will fall to you and the other students, but you really want to learn all you can.. so what other new things can they slip into the schedule too? Tell them you want to do more, learn more, make your self more valuable to them all the while increasing your skill levels.
Have fun while you're at it too!
Finally, a use for a new ICANN top-level:
sucks.coop
--
Rob Carlson
My employer gets unpaid interns for the sole purpose of doing the grunt work (mostly data entry). We're very upfront about what you'll be doing (which may not have been the situation in your case), but the interns still have an opportunity to learn.
Even though you may not find yourself doing the work you thought you could, you do have access to people who are doing it. Talk to them. Ask them questions. Learn!
Of the last 3 interns my section had, we hired one, offered a job to another (who took a job at another firm), and another section hired the third. Think of the internship as an extended interview. Make contacts and even if you don't want to work at that company, you can get some nice letters of recommendation and perhaps an inside track at other jobs.
Or you could go around whining and making a pain of yourself and poisoning any future you may have had. It may be too late for that. If I ran a fiber-optic company that had a high school co-op program, I'd be a little suspicious of those students right now.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
Absolutely. Many of the positions I looked into did require specific degrees. I wouldn't advise anyone to drop out of school. But it is interesting to notice how the market is changing somewhat; IT positions are in such high demand. I think that one of the major influences the Open Source Revolution will have on the market is produce a supply of developers (without or without formal education or training at a corporation) that are more than capable of fulfilling the demand of the market.
Perhaps getting a degree via night school would be the best option for you. If your current role evaporates (can in some lines of work) then you may like having that piece of paper to fall back on. But then again some people are so well motivated and so skilled at presenting themselves professionally that it doesn't matter.
I would like to do that. The company I work for now offers tuition reimbursement, which is really nice. I've already started checking out evening classes at some local colleges and universities. It does feel sometimes like my 2 years were somewhat in vain...I'd like very much to complete what I started.
----
Celebrate the finer things in life
An Educational Co-op is a program in which students work in a coporate environment for a period of time, often a semeseter, usually taking off from school. The idea is that the student receives valuable experience and more ammo with which to base his or her career choices. The employer receives cheap labour and the opportunity to tempt the student worker into coming on board full-time upon graduation, already trained (at a cheap rate) and spun-up. I took a full-year off of school (after my sophomore year at Washington University in St. Louis, MO) to participate in two co-ops, one at the Washington University Electronic Radiology Lab, and the other at Unigraphics Solutions, Inc. After working full-time for a year at $14/hour (sure beats washing dishes at your local bar and grill), it was very difficult to motivate myself to go back to school. In fact I dropped out two weeks into my junior year to pursue a career without a degree. What I found is that a large number of companies viewed my year of experience and my involvement in the open source community as more valuable than the piece of paper saying I had a bachelors. I somehow expected the degree to be the all-crucial key to getting a job in the tech industry.
----
Celebrate the finer things in life
As a high school student there is no way anyone is going to let you do anything that's super -ool. Because with super-cool comes some risks that someone has to take responsibility for. If something goes wrong and money is lost someone's head is going to roll. No one wants to be the guy who gets fired because some high-school kid screwwed up.
So the first thing you can do to maximize your experience is to realize that you aren't going to get to do super-cool things, you're going to get to do the menial things the people with the experience don't want to do. And get over it.
The next thing you can do is meet people. Start networking and the job where you get to do the super-cool stuff will be closer. If you seem to enjoy the menial work, a future manager may be more likely to hire you on.
Learn things from other people. Keep your trap shut and listen to what us old folks have to say. Chances are there are quite a few people who have a lot of knowledge where you are. Maybe try to establish a mentor relationship with someone.
Bottom line is paitence. You are there for cheap labor, there's no getting around it. You don't have enough experience for anything else. But if you keep your eyes and ears open you probably can learn a lot.
One thing that could well be successful (at *any* job, from a co-op/internship to a real-world position) is to take the initiative to find things around the company that you think look interesting and you might want to learn more about. This might be new piece of technology (hardware or software) you think the company could get use out of, a programming or networking project, or whatever. Write up your idea as a formal proposal, detailing what you want to do, how you plan to go about doing it, and how you think it would benefit the company, and present it to your supervisor. Don't pick something that would radically change the way the company does business ("convert all production servers to Lunix"), but do try to pick something that's actually useful, and not just a "toy" project.
Even if you don't get the green light to do your proposal as originally envisioned, chances are very good that your boss will be impressed by your initiative and organization, which will increase the chance of getting to work on something more interesting in the future.
I'm sure there are shady outfits out there who happily will use co-op/intern programs as just a source of cheap labor, but I suspect there are far more cases where the people assigned to supervise aren't themselves managers, and don't always have the best perspective of how to use your skills most effectively.
Every industry has lots of mindless grunt work to do, much of it cannot or will not be automated for the foreseeable future. Someone has to do it. Someone is defined as a) the new guy. b) the interns. c) someone who doesn't speak english well.
People who never have to do this sort of work ever tend to take this work for granted and misunderstand it. All work you do has a lesson, and some day you may have to be responsible for a bunch of people doing it OFR you -- better you should have appropriate expectations. You may earn more respect and get more work out of them.
and wait until you get to grad school. if you took my monthly allowance and divided it by the number of hours i work i would make about $3.00 an hour, and that's with two degrees in engineering.
when i was in highschool i worked at mcdonalds. if you dont feel loved testing equipment then you should go work at a fast food place to gain some perspective.
most of my friends who co-op'ed in college had about the same problem. this is the deal:
to give you a good project and get you up to speed on the stuff you need to know to get it done and then have you leave after a semester is money wasted by the company. you expirence walks out the door with you. they will want to give good projects to full time employees who will take the knowlege they aquire and put it back into the company.
there is also the realization that a good project might not be accomplishable in a semester (possibly two).
i'm not saying that the training would be wasted on you. you may come back to this company after college. i'm just saying that you have to see the companies perspective on this. if you want to do something cool this is my advice:
find something that you can do that will save the company money (or make them money). do a cost analysis detailing how you think X will save the company $Y. ask your boss if you can talk to him and give him a short presentation on what your idea is. this shows initiave on your part. if you want to be an engineer this is it. making something from nothing... well really optimizing and doing what you can with what you have.
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
-- john
Look at existing taks for something you want to do. Can't find any? Come up with new tasks that take advantage of your stronger skills and get whoever is in charge to bless them. Make yourself as busy as you can. You'll end up spending the majority, if not all, your time doing things you like.
And the grunt work? That'll be assigned to the suckers freeing their time by not volunteering.
My company has, in the past, hired a few coop students on for 10 week stints. We stopped the practice after we realized that the drain on our permanent resources was greater than the benefit of having the coop staff around.
We had to hold their hands when we did anything "interesting" and even then, more often than not, they got in the way and used up a great deal of time asking questions which they thought were pertinent but actually were off base and shouldn't have been asked then.
As a company, we generally support education of tomorrow's workforce...just not at the expense of today's work.
This is why you are given the crap jobs...they don't require handholding and the senior staff can get on with the real work.
Plus, there is a general feeling that after we've spent all that time training you, you just leave back for the pack and we are forced to start all over again.
Just some thoughts...
I've worked for Dupont, and have friends that have worked for SGI. Often times they give boring, repetative tasks. But there's a good reason for it. It's hard to develop real projects that are both learning experiences for the co-op and profitable for the company. Anything given to the co-op is most likely going to require constant attention from the supervisor, which doubles the process's cost.
Many times, the descision to hire co-ops is made at a high level, with no clear understanding of what the students will actually be doing. Often times when employees are over-worked and ask for more help, middle-management will jump right to co-ops (if they're sufficiently funded). But from experience, this can actually be counter-productive. Many co-workers will see this and thus resolve the co-ops to menial tasks.
A student is there to learn new things, but a company wants students that are already skilled, so it's adverse selection. Thus I can't imagine there's much practical use of a High school student (though we've managed to hire one or two for a summer).
-Michael
-Michael
I oppologise this sound a bit harsh... I'm in a hurry, but I've got a lot to write on this subject.
Ok... we are a research engineering firm. We work on everything from telecommunications to maglev to industrial robot design to --- whatever... pay us enough for something we're interested in and probably we'll do it. We can manage many multi-million dollar projects simultaneously, yet we can't effectively manage our co-ops.
Since we do everything, it is common that you cross-discipline, as in I'm a CompE by trade but I know a lot about ME stuff now. With a Co-op, its hard to instill the additional knowledge in a usefull way... plus its hard to slow down to explain to them what we need done... The co-op needs to learn by osmosis and asking questions, figure out when and how to put their hands in, and otherwise stay alert and help out.
Strictly from a corporate standpoint, when there are no co-ops around, I'm the low man on the totem pole. Theoretical design at the system level and complex mathematics is handled by the PHDs, and the staff engineers get responsibilities delagated to them according to their tallents, availability and socio-political boundaries. Senior engineers (probably middle-management in other businesses) act to advise, help out and handle the larger project portions.... Co-ops are...well, lower than the low... If we need it done, then they get to do it.
As one of our projects, a co-op got to BOIL RANCID MEAT for the entire time. Think about it, four months of bubbling rancid meat... YUCK! I'd have quit if they had asked me to do it. That's the honest truth. God bless Vinny, who found out that he wasn't thrilled with our company, and who landed a job with a really great company and pulls in the big bucks. Did I mention Vinny was working on a BS not a HS diploma?
Face it, for the most part, we need the co-ops to do the tasks which are not cost effective for us to do... That means, "wire this up" and "machine me this" are two common things said to co-ops... We don't have you design circuits or robot parts because we have enough people to do that that don't have to be trained. Co-oping at a company is not where the company bows down and bends over backwards to provide the co-op an oporunity to learn. Co-oping provides you with access to real engineers doing real engineering work. Evrey once in a while, if you prove yourself useful, they pass you a task
You say your job got repetative after a month or so? Surprise, when you get a real job, your job will get repetative after a month or so. One does not go from college to millionare CEO unless they start Napster. Co-oping with a real company (as opposed to starting one) means that you get treated like a real person. That means low man on the totem pole...
as to your comment:
We certainly didn't sign up for this program in order to be cheap labor; we signed up because it was marketed to us as an "engineering project," and the majority of us plan to pursue engineering-related careers. What can we do as students to improve our experience, and what guidelines should any company follow when conducting a cooperative education program such as this, particularly with high school kids? Is there anyone out there who has found a successful way to run such a program?
That's what you are. You are cheap labor. I am cheap labor as well. However, my experience makes me more useful labor, and with the fact that our contracts last from 3 weeks to 5 years, either the information necessary has to be rapidly picked up and executed (higher skillset than most HS students and many college) or the project is so long that to have you design something (potentially poorly) and then you leave leaves the company with no one who "owns" or knows that part.
You probably don't know statics in depth, dynamics is right out... coding is likely suspect... probably your documentation skills are poor.... and well so on... These things are picked up as you go along... Believe it or not, sweeping the floors and machining a couple of parts is the ground floor enterance for most. (other than IT and so on*)
Having interned in HS as well, I sympathise with you. I found that bleeding mice and running electropherisis tests was boring, but a different kind of boring.
anyways... gotta go.
* someday I'll rant on this.
You say you want a revolution?
seriously, big fat deal. i did a highschool co-op as well. i was in charge of entering names into a database, faxing, and doing tech support on Wordperfect (DOS) when people couldn't figure it out.
so it wasn't the most glamourous job, but i was just a highschool student! i put that job on my resume, and made it sound like i was integral to the team. then i got a better job through that. if you're looking for enthrauling work through your high school co-op, you're delusional and naive. go there, do the grunt work, see how things are done. the very fact that you did a highschool co-op will guarantee that you're looked at in a better light than your competition when you're going for that next job. what looks better: working the summer at McD's, or doing tech "gruntwork" at an engineering firm?
so get over it. you're in highschool for Christ's sake! i have highschool co-ops working for me now, and while i try to keep them involved and interested, at the end of the day it's one of them who's going to be doing the data entry. this is just your first step, so don't get too far ahead of yourself.
- j
Now, if you weren't getting paid, that's a whole other story. I had an experience in high school with a computer maker who shall remain nameless, who expected us to work 15-20 hours per week, for free. I'm glad I got out of there as fast as possible!
"This message is composed of 100% recycled electrons."
I appreciate your problem.
I was once an intelligent young person, but due to my age I was not considered of "sufficient maturity and experience" for tasks for which I frankly had most of the brains.
Now I'm on the other end. I'm 25 years older and have lost that 100 millisecond rapier wit that I had in high school.
As such an overworked technical person, I find that it is difficult to spring loose the time to adequately mentor a young person, even if I do enjoy it.
From that standpoint I'd suggest this:
Be a self starter. Learn everything you can about the business and look for opportunities to creatively apply something you've learned to improve their quality of life.
I'm thinking here of things like Perl and PHP programming, setting up a web page to dynamically update their view of what's going on in the company, etc. But don't be limited by my suggestions. Use your own mind to create your own suggested job!
Be assured, if you don't figure out something creative to occupy your mind at work, someone there will assign you some drudgery to keep you busy. They might still assign you drudgery, but if you start to show some sparkly creation, you might get a reprieve and get to dom something you enjoy that will be of greater educational and vocational value to you in the longer run.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Since day one every body has known what a CO-OP program is for. CO-OPs are for exactly what you are doing -- get cheap labor for meanial tasks.
You will never be involved in a project as a CO-OP student for several reasons:
You are a student -- by definition you are still learning and thus may not have the technical knowledge needed
You are temporary -- the company knows you will be leaving, as such they will not involve you in anything that might require more than 15 minutes of your time
You will eventually work for a competitor -- since you are a minor you can not be bound by a contract and as such what you learn you can take with you to whomever your future employer is, why should your CO-OP company pay to train you to compete with them?
Here is what you, as a student, use the CO-OP program for:
Resume builder -- when you graduate at least you will be able to say you've seen the inside of an engineering shop this will give you some advantage over other graduates that will get you past the HR machine and into an interview (list the projects your CO-OP company was involved in regardless of how little you actually participated, if the projects are high profile you'll look like a little genius)
Contact builder -- DING DING DING DING -- this is the biggy. When you apply for a job most HR departments don't know squat about engineering, they do a global search on your resume for buzz-words, if they are there they forward you resume to the department. Now that you are sitting in an interview you can use "in the know" knowledge (i.e. peoples names, industry inside jokes, etc) that will make you seem like less of a newbie and more like "one of the guys". There is a big difference between not hiring the "green-horn" and not hiring Joe the guy who CO-OPed at BFD Engineering with Al (get the picture).
So, basically stop BMW-ing about your meanial work and start rubbing elbows. Go to lunch with the engineers, ask questions about what they are doing and about the industry as a whole. What you get out of a CO-OP is not the ability to be a part of designing the next generation of space flight vehicles, what you get out of a CO-OP is the ability to develop personal relationships with the people who are designing the next generation of space flight vehicles.
I understand that kind of co-op. I'm an owner along with about 5000 other people.
What kind of co-op is this being described? Is it basically the same and I'm just missing the connection? Or is the relationship build on a different foundation?
Evan - needs to hit preview before submitting
I'm a junior in CS/Engineering at one of the top CS schools in the country, and I'll tell you for a fact that most internships/co-ops for friends of mine have been stuff like this. You HAVE to do some share of the dirty work before you can ever really get something interesting going. So you're doing testing, etc... big deal. Many of my friends do that 8 hours a day all summer at their jobs, and they have more than 2 years of a college education under their belt, not just most of a high school degree. You most likely don't have anywhere near the necessary education to do anything fun/engineering related just yet. Hang in there though, this will be great to put on a resume. "Yeah, I spent part of my high school years working for this great tech company, doing the kind of work I'd do for you guys. I've already got 2 years of experience over any other potential intern that you were considering." When you talk to the recruiters in the years to come, play it up, don't make it sound like you did menial little jobs. I'm sure if you do a good job, your bosses won't mind sending in nice letters of recommendation to potential employers. (or, for that matter, hiring you themselves.)
Just some advice from someone who's been there (well, actually still IS there...)
I was a co-op student, and I make a point of hiring them whenever I can, as co-op is a wonderful concept. I try to make it interesting, and educational, and blah blah blah, but the simple fact of the matter is that there's a lot of 'scut' work that pops up. And a lot of it gets dumped on the person who's other tasks would suffer least, from a business point of view. Guess what; if there's a co-op, it's her. But here's something that most co-ops never realize: if the co-op wern't there to do it, it would still get done. It would still be there. We're not creating the scut work specifically to give to you, and yes, guess what, for every exciting relational database you get to design and implement, there will be thousands and thousands of crap assignments; inventory, renaming documents, etc etc etc. Might as well learn that fact now.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Yay Ottawa! My first college co-op was for National Defense. Keep in mind, kids, co-ops are like shit. There's plenty to spread around, nobody wants to step in it, but it'll float to it's proper level, and it's a prime ingredient for growing things. In other words, go in expecting the world, you're in for a grand disappointment. Go in prepared to demonstrate your skill and abilities, and you'll probably be given tasks consummate with said skills and abilities. But nobody likes a teen-age punk know-it-all whiner; at that point, you're fufilling stereotypes.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Learn how to use the phone & copier system the first day. Be nice to all secretaries, mailroom people, etc. Never go anywhere without a clipboard or other work-related object in your hand.
InstaPundit! Ahead of the Curve Since 30 Minutes Ago
There's a perfect Dilbert for this:
My first intern-style job was at a defense electronics company. I spent entire days counting resistors.
Believe me, some day you will look back fondly on days like that.
You learn by reading good code, you learn by reading bad code. As long as you recognize bad code as bad, you learn what to avoid.
In many internships, you end up doing the grunt work, but as long as it's practice or related then it's not bad.
Fight Spammers!
--You can't hear it, but I am clapping really loud.
---
This
From personal experience as an employeer, we tend to ask co-ops to perform as difficult a job as they are technically qualified to do.
Having said that, every employee, co-op or not, will find him/herself performing boring tasks very so often.
As Dilbert says, this is the reason why the pay you: if work was all fun they would charge admission prices at the entrance!
This is not to say that there aren't unenlightened co-op employers out there who think of co-op students as under-aged janitors, as opposed to trainees, but from what you write yours doesn't seem to be one.
The schools I'm familiar with keep tabs on co-op employers, and if they treat their students as sources of menial labor with no training component the employer gets an earful.
Sorry if you were misled to believe that you were anything *BUT* cheap labor. You are. Don't feel bad, not many jobs are actually like the 'job description'. Most of the time you are doing 'other duties as assigned'. :-)
Daniel
Yup, The training was cool now you get to learn why people are paid to go to work it is because you would not do most of it because it is fun. Just be glad you have something to put on your resume. Work can be fun but most of it is not that is what home is for. Sounds like a good program to me.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
that's inane
Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
As a full time employee of a high-tech company, my question is: where are we supposed to get cheap labor, if we can't use high school co-op students? I certainly don't want to do it.
I know this sounds likes like a smarmy dismissal of the question, but there really are some crappy jobs that need doing, and somebody's got to do them. Perhaps you should look into trying to automate these boring tasks (Perl, Python, VB, whatever makes sense in your environment) and not only will this make your life more interesting, you'll learn something in the process.
I co-oped three summers at IBM in San Jose. Every assignment I had, and the reason I was invited back twice stemmed from one assignment I fought for. I could have been a copy boy the entire time, but because I proposed something, and did it, they offered me further employment.
Just because someone has you filing or doing inventory, does not mean that there is not more you can do. It's up to you to find a void and fill it.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
Hmmm, so let me see if I got this straight... The company spends its money to train and educate you, and now you are experiencing engineering work you complain that the company doesn't keep spending its money on you?
I know it may be difficult to believe, but a lot of engineering is spent doing menial chores... like testing and validation. Very few find themselves perpetually at the forefront of "cool" new technology.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
Tounge in cheek but TRUE.
I attend a college with a co-op is part of our curriculum. I will be going on my third and final co-op this spring. What have I learned most from my two previous co-ops?
1. Engineering is full of menial tasks.
2. No one starts off doing the really cool stuff right out of college anyway, unless you are a genius. Engineers work in teams and you will most likely start out working under a more experienced PE until you learn a special skill or prove your self to be engineering management type material.
3. MOST IMPOSTANT LESSON. Not all jobs turn out to be as cool as they are cracked up to be. Not all management cares about giving co-ops meaningful work. They hired you for a purpose and intend to exploit you for it. This is a valuable life lesson.
My advice for the posters: Ask to get involved in projects that you are interested in. Talk to your supervisor and let him know that you would like to work in some more challenging work along with what you are currently doing. Be open, and if he/she does not respond well then leave and take that lesson with you for the rest of your career.
Remember, you got an opportunity to see real engineering in person, even if you could not actively participate. That should give you an idea of whether you want to spend the next 4 years studying it and the rest of your life doing it. Not everyone gets that type of opportunity.
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Yeah 220, 221. Whatever it takes! - Mr. Mom
Some posters have responded to your question with the answer "tough shit; get used to it kid"(paraphrase). While they have a solid point you may want to absorb on your travels into the work world, you have a good point as well: you feel you were misled by promises of engineering experience. You are getting engineering experience doing the grunt work--that is part of engineering. But you have every right to assert your desire to do more interesting things. You have nothing to lose by diplomatically bringing this issue up with any of your supervisors, including any teachers who helped you find the position. And this could be a great experience in asking for what you want at work. Most people are so afraid of approaching the same issue you're talking about, for fear of losing their jobs, they never even try. Give it a shot--you won't know unless you do. But when you're talking with your supervisors, try not to argue and be pissed off, as angry as you may be. Be assertive and insistent and clear about what you want. And be prepared to not get what you want: if you get to do even a few fun things among your other work, you can consider that an improvement. Hope this helps some; good luck!
MAybe you think that anyone with half a brain can run cable, perhaps that's true, but without that cable the whole project may not work. For example, I'm a field service engineer with Compaq Federal, my job is to maintain systems. Replace, repair, test, troubleshoot. But before I can do that, I need systems, which means I may be sent off to help build the systems. And then when enough are ready they get clustered. In clustering them and running the storage, there is a lot of cable work. Without the cables the thing wouldn't work too well. And On a test system I've already pulled over 12 hours on a shift just helping with the cable work. I imagine once the production system arrives I'll be doing that day in and out for a week or two. Cabling is all part of the total experience. And you get out what you put in.
My highschool purchased a large amount of outdated army computer systems from our town's neighboring army base. The next year a new class came out, a "computer hardware" class. Well, the class taught very little about computer hardware, especially when all we were working with were outdated 8088's & such. Our "class assignment" was to sort through all these computers and see which ones worked, and then set them aside, the ones that didn't work, we had to try to fix them to put them in the working computer pile. It was supposed to go on like this all year, but us students didn't like the idea of being free labor for the school so we mostly destroyed these machines and told the teacher that most of them were broken. Then the ones that worked, we just played around on them and pretended we were actually getting stuff done. It was really bad ethics on our part, but we all got a free credit for the most part.
As it turns out, I was not a good programmer (I can code most anything as long as you are patient enough to wait for me, a long wait sometimes). They then gave me a chance to become their IT department for all 30 employees since I knew how to fix PCs. I ended up staying there for 3 years as a full time IT person after I graduated and that is where I got all of my on the job training for my future career, and they paid me for it (a great deal).
Now (10 years later), I am still in the IT industry and work in the networking group of a large corporation.
The point is that, a co-op job is what you make of it. Be aggressive and try to learn what you can and take whatever opportunities are given to you, no matter how small, they may grow into great opportunities. Use this job not just to learn but to help figure out what it is you want to do in the high tech world. There are many options, try out as many as you can before you settle down to a specific career path.
Don't ask how they are running their program wrong. Ask how you are intereacting with their program incorrectly.
Want to see every step I took to start my company? http://www.rowdylabs.com/blogs/pitchtothegods
What did you expect to do, start at the top? You may be the brightest employee since time began, but are almost useless without some practical experience. This is how to get it.
Guess you should have taken the blue pill.
__________________ Hey Moderators!! Fuck Off! Thanks.
My first co-op was in grade 11 at Newbridge Networks (which is now part of Alcatel). In a way that term was like the one described by co-op-ted. I was working in an assembly plant and performing labor for free. On the other hand, the program was attached to an electronics course, and I did learn about electronics there. Plus it was basically my first job...I got alot of exposure to how the workplace actually functions which was very important.
The next year, I did another term at Nortel. This one was linked to my computer science course, and it proved very valuable for me. I was able to learn what the process of designing software in the real world was like, and they gave me the time and space to learn a new language (Perl) on my own from scratch.
Now I'm in College taking computer science, and I'm out on my third co-op term at Canada Post. (Yes actually mail can be high-tech). I'm really enjoying this experience. We're working on developing applications on PocketPCs (yeah yeah, MS, I know..) which is something not many companies have done and definitely not something I'd get to experience at school.
So I dunno, maybe my case is a little extreme, most people won't get the chance to do that many co-op work terms. However I have no doubt that they've helped me become not only a better programmer, but someone who knows how to handle the workplace. And when future employers see three companies on the resume of a guy fresh out of college, that's an impressive thing.
[tounge in cheek]
Consider this a good educational experience. The company management apparently does not recognise your intelligence or ability to solve problems, nor do they seem to even place a decent value on your contributions.
Later, once you have your credentials (and some real world experience), you will find that company management does not recognise your intelligence or ability to solve problems, nor do they seem to even place a decent value on your contributions.
And far in the future, when you are a top professional, having proved your worth and intelligence many times over, you will find that company management does not recognise your intelligence or ability to solve problems, nor do they seem to even place a decent value on your contributions.
In short, the experience you gain now will be relevent for the rest of your career.
A dingo ate my sig...
However, I did the co-op thing last year, and had a pretty good experience. The one who was in before me did grunt work -- the few times when he did anything at all. They weren't too inclined to give anything that could be important to someone who didn't want to work. Although I did my share of the dull stuff, after a few months I was doing quite a bit of programming and system administration ... the things that didn't require a whole lot of experience, but still needed to get done.
Another thing which helped out ... I sort of went in the back door. (I was lucky, my father works for this company ... but check around with any friends you have with engineering positions; they very well may be able to steer you into something interesting.) HR people generally have their own ideas about where they want the co-ops, and if you do some of the legwork yourself, you may be able to get more choices as to where you end up.
The primary thing I took from my job was that I never want to work in a corporate environment, if I can possibly avoid it ... but the six months of experience waas many times more valuable than a semester of school. Think for a second ... what would you rather be doing, reading a textbook (generally badly-written confusing trash by a faculty member) and doing pointless homework and tests, or doing and watching the same work that you hope to be doing some day? It may not be fun, but there are lots of advantages.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Co-op's don't have to suck, but they often do. The problem is, many companies look at you as cheap labor, paid only in experience. You can't be trusted with new engineering tasks, only grunt work that a temp could do, or things that aren't mission critical.
If you are stuck in one of these, and not getting paid, get out. If you are getting paid, stick around, but you'll probably learn more taking another class.
If you are getting paid in a boring, repetative job, you may have to take some initiative to make it a good experience. The best way is to shadow engineers doing the "exciting" stuff, and get them to talk about their jobs. You'll learn something, and, if they like you, you may get moved somewhere more interesting.
If you can't shadow, then spend a lunch with them. You may get a free lunch, if they are feeling guilty, and you'll learn a lot while they talk over sandwiches. Same benefit - you learn something, they may like you enough to move you to something better.
I haven't had a work-for-credit situation, only summer jobs and part-time work during school. I haven't had a bad experience, but that was mostly luck. The best ones were jobs where someone had a pet project, but couldn't justify putting someone with experience on it.
One summer, I worked for an energy trading company, filling out forms required by new industry regulations. EXTREMELY boring, but I took my spare time to exhance the original Excel form into something much better, learning Visual Basic along the way. I was able to make a one-hour task take 3 minutes, teach someone else how to do it, and left the process better than when I found it. I got a nice sweater out of it, and a good recomendation.
In another job, I had to analyze a set of dial-up computers, used as remote terminals over slow-bandwidth connections. Again, boring work, plus the computer room was freezing. I took the time to automate the process, put together some presentations, and learned a bit about how the company worked. I also had many interesting lunches, and learned much more than the scope of my job.
To make a co-op or part-time job sucessful, you need to get yourself interested in it, find something to like or something new to learn, and talk with those with experience. Again, if you can't do this, or have no interest in the work, you are better off taking another class, rather than working a co-op.
It won't get you out of the work you are already assigned, but you can volunteer for new projects. You can invent something cool and ask your boss permission to do it.
Nobody's going to challenge you but yourself. Nobody said to Edison, "I need something that I can talk into and play my voice back to me." Edison dreamed it up and had his lackeys build it for him.
You don't have the lackeys to do stuff for you (yet) but you can still dream up things for yourself. Personal challenges are always internal.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
First, do everything they ask of you. Do it quickly, and do it well. This shows responsibility. Acting like you are above this sort of work will not endear you to the people who normally have to do that job when you're not around.
Second, since you've done the assigned tasks quickly, you should have some time left. Show initiative and ask for some more complicated, additional projects.
This worked for me. I was able to turn a snoozer of a summer job into something pretty interesting.
Good luck!
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
You are being oppressed by the capitalist pigs.
We must overthrow the tyranical captialist who makes us work at gunpoint and forces us to take their money in payment to perpetuate the capitalist system.
We will overthrow capitalism and install a perfect socialist society where we can all comment on how great Ralph Nader is and we can all make ice cream together. Our society does not need money, because Star Trek told us so. Some people will do the dirty work like being garbage men because they love our society and our fellow man so much that they don't mind smelling like rotting sealife.
Meanwhile we can live in the trees and eat small nuts and berries and save all the plants and animals, even the ones that eat us sometimes.
Hurrah.
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
I remember when I thought I wasn't being used to my full potential. When I thought I was undervalued by my company. When I felt I could recode the whole world without bugs in under an hour. How I yearn for those days. How I miss last week.
Ok, enough kidding. Actually, I do still feel this way, I've just learned not to harp on it. Most of the other engineers I know feel that way, too. Most non-engineers seem to think that way about themselves, as well. You just have to learn to make the most of your situation.
First, look at it from your employer's perspective. There are three reasons why a company hires high school students: Cheap labor, good PR, and in a few rare cases, a real interest in helping high school students find their calling. A lot of people on here are probably saying, "Of course they just want you as cheap labor, deal with it." I'm not going to say that. What I'll say is, take advantage of it. To make the most of your situation, here are some suggestions:
1) Accept that you are going to do some crap work. It's inevitable, whether you're a grunt or a top engineer. Sometimes, the only difference between way cool and big-ass lame is a few thousand repetitions.
2) Ask questions. Lots of questions. Try to make them good questions. (There are no stupid questions, but lots of inquisitive idiots, blah blah blah...) This will: keep them aware of you, let them know you're interested, and possibly lead to them revealing more interesting secrets.
3) Find the mentor. Somebody there is truly interested in helping you out. Most likely it is some old geek who will never have kids of his own. If you can get one of these guys to take you under his wing, chances are he will let you in on the cool stuff he's working on.
4) Play on their motives. If you can find the real reason the company hired you (cheap labor, pr, etc.), you can work it in to your discussions when you try to get cooler assignments. Try this, "Oh, there's no need for [engineer] to spend his time on that, I can handle it."
And never forget, you're just in high school. I know that seems insulting right now, but you'll be saying it yourself in a few years. People are supposed to have crap jobs in high school - it's like a rite of passage or something. And boring crap is better than manual labor.
And in conclusion, stand up straight, fly right, don't forget to floss, and pull up your pants!
Seriously. You will get out of it what you put in to it. The company may not be 100% what you think they promised, but you must put in 100% anyway. So they have you doing crap work. What do you do at lunch and on breaks? Are you talking with the engineers (or hanging with your buddies)? Are you reading whatever they have laying around (or did you bring in a copy of you sociology text to study)? Are you showing a willingness to learn (or are you moaning about the grunt work)?
Sometimes experiences are plain old rotten, but often times they can be made much better just by having the right attitude at the right time.
Luck, after all, is mostly just preparedness meeting opportunity.
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I can't believe how many people have posted things along the lines of "pay your dues", "shut up and quit whining" or "what'd you expect"?
In all of my internships, I always found a real project to do and did interesting work. And a lot of my friends did, too. You know how? By doing it.
My first internship was at RealNetworks (at the time called Progressive Networks). I knew how to program Macs, which was rare, so they put a Mac on my desk and told me to be a tester (I think my instructions were to keep clicking until it crashed). Well, I found a bug, but instead of reporting it, I opened up the code and tried to find it. I didn't understand the code, but instead of asking my boss, I found other engineers who were happy to answer my questions. And I found the bug. And about 35 memory leaks. Then I showed my boss that I had actually fixed those bugs and many others.
By the end of the summer I was given full responsibility for the new Installer Wizard and I also ported the first RealVideo proof-of-concept to the Mac.
You're going to have many bosses who don't know how to take advantage of you in such a way that you make a real contribution and learn, too. But others may have projects for you to do, and once you impress them they'll be more likely to give you a try.
Of course, you may have to do some menial labor, too. That's part of the job. But that doesn't mean that you can't also learn and have responsibility, too.
In high school, just watching what an engineering job *is* is a learning opportunity. But there are 2 truths you must understand.
1.) Co-ops -ARE- cheap labor. They hire you as an employee at a lot less rate than college grads. You get experience (and trust me, you get experience just making coffee if you are exposed to how the corporation works), and they get cheap labor. Its how the world works.
2.) Entry level jobs (even engineering) is a lot of tedious, repetitous tasks. Especially in large corporations. Only after a few years of that do you get to do interesting work. Its something we all go through.
Take this as a learning experience when you get to college and co-op as a college student, take a job in a smaller company (like 100 employees) and you'll have a slightly more interesting job experience. Always do 110%, because employers recognize that with more interesting jobs.
Oh, and kudos on co-op'ing. You'll find yourself a much more desirable possible employee with co-op experience.
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Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
For in a real job, every day is filled with incredibly interesting experiences.
There is no boring paperwork to fill out, no stupid software tests to run, no boring software reloads, no drinking coffee and St John;s Wort endlessly just to stay awake in front of your web browser.
No tedious pruning of the 2000 odd pieces of mail in your inbox, no hard drive maintenance, nope, just laughts and giggles.