About the Co-op Program
The Walter P. Murphy Cooperative Engineering Education Program is
one of the most prestigious co-op programs in the country. You will receive an engineering degree from one of the best universities in the country plus up to 18 months of engineering experience in industry.
At Northwestern, co-op is an educational program which allows engineering students to alternate periods of academic study with full-time periods of paid work experience related to their academic and professional goals.
Over 30 percent of the undergraduate engineering student body
participate in co-op. By the time they graduate, 90 percent of co-ops
have led industrial projects, supervised processes and people,
published in major journals with their co-op employers, presented at
national conferences as part of their co-op experiences or worked on
patent applications.
The Program provides a campus coordinator to work with you in all aspects of your participation in the co-op program:
- Deciding about co-op;
- Preparing the co-op application;
- Researching companies;
- Learning to interview for your first professional experience in engineering;
- Making plans to obtain a co-op position;
- Coping with the new environment that you find in industry, once placed with a co-op employer; and
- Helping in the process of turning your five years at McCormick into a solid foundation for your future career achievements.
You will be registered in a non-credit course so that your co-op experience becomes part of your
academic history; you are continuously enrolled at Northwestern while you are working on a co-op assignment. Therefore, you can remain covered by your family's health insurance and automobile insurance at student rates. In addition, your student loans do not go into repayment. Your experience is documented for future professional licensing.
