What is Cooperative Education?
As far back as the 19th century, the cooperative education model has slowly gained ground at universities across our country and the world. In this model, standard classroom education comes coupled with structured, paid work experience. This work experience is brought to students via university-private sector partnerships.
How does this model differ from the Standard Education Model?
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It has been theorized that to provide society with well-rounded, highly competent graduates for the 21st century, educational institution must provide curricula that cover four pillars of teaching:
Unfortunately, the standard educational model employed at most schools is preoccupied only with the first pillar and, to a lesser extent, the second. Every aspect of a student's formal educational experience (e.g. lectures, exams, term papers, and group projects) is prescribed for them to build and demonstrate academically oriented knowledge. Students are left to their own devices to pursue internships and other educational opportunities to supplement this academic knowledge with real-world experience and practical knowledge. Resultantly, students who do not find these opportunities may graduate only with this academic knowledge, but with little experience applying it to complete tasks assigned by employers.
The cooperative educational model strives to refocus the learning experience equally on all four pillars. To accomplish this, students still receive a traditional classroom education to acquire academic knowledge. However, the school then goes an extra step and partners with respective industrial organizations to bring cooperative employment opportunities to its students. These cooperative education programs, or "co-ops", serve the last three pillars by providing students with precious work experience in their prospective occupations. As a result, when cooperatively educated students graduate, they do so with both academic knowledge and occupational experience.
- To know: Schools should teach students basic skills and knowledge that they will need in order to learn and understand even more sophisticated concepts in their fields.
- To make: Schools should acquaint students with the abstract, technical, and/or physical tools they will use to accomplish tasks in their fields.
- To coexist: Schools should adapt students to their field-specific work environments by exposing them to the conventions of socialization, communication, and cooperation common in their fields occupations—not just academic environments.
- To be: Schools should require students to integrate the former 3 pillars in order to become intellectually complete graduates capable of successful careers within their field.
Unfortunately, the standard educational model employed at most schools is preoccupied only with the first pillar and, to a lesser extent, the second. Every aspect of a student's formal educational experience (e.g. lectures, exams, term papers, and group projects) is prescribed for them to build and demonstrate academically oriented knowledge. Students are left to their own devices to pursue internships and other educational opportunities to supplement this academic knowledge with real-world experience and practical knowledge. Resultantly, students who do not find these opportunities may graduate only with this academic knowledge, but with little experience applying it to complete tasks assigned by employers.
The cooperative educational model strives to refocus the learning experience equally on all four pillars. To accomplish this, students still receive a traditional classroom education to acquire academic knowledge. However, the school then goes an extra step and partners with respective industrial organizations to bring cooperative employment opportunities to its students. These cooperative education programs, or "co-ops", serve the last three pillars by providing students with precious work experience in their prospective occupations. As a result, when cooperatively educated students graduate, they do so with both academic knowledge and occupational experience.
Cooperative Education Programs vs Internship Programs
The defining characteristic cooperative education programs is that they are provided by the university via strategic partnerships with industrial leaders. Therefore universities have more control over their structure and the learning experience within them. This defining characteristic results in many differences between co-op programs and internships. These have been enumerated below.
- Students are guaranteed access to one of several co-op employment opportunities as part of their education. Conversely, because internship programs have very little, if any, affiliation with universities, they operate outside the purview of the school. Therefore students have no guarantee of acceptance into these programs.
- Educational institutions which partner with industry to provide co-ops have more control over how the programs are structured. Since these institutions have a clearer understanding of what aspects improve the learning experience for students, the resulting co-ops are better tailored to suit a students educational needs than an internship which may lack university input. In fact, many internships are notorious for turning students into little more than glorified errand-runners, as bosses often assign interns to trivial tasks that fail to utilize their academic prowess.
- Co-op programs are directly integrated into the academic calendar. As a result, they usually last longer and do not take away time scheduled for traditional classwork. On the other hand, internships are not integrated with a school's academic calender. They may or may not interfere with a students traditional classroom time. Some may try to avoid this by launching for shorter periods during summer months.