View of coops

[a_lifters_life]

What is the general view of a coop/intern?

 

People just seem to look down upon them. Why is that

[deleted-account]

Some people will look down on interns/coops simply from past experience. Some interns/coops come in thinking they know everything and that they can tell others what to do. No matter how much book knowledge they may have, they tend to not know as much about applying it in the real world.

 

On the other hand, an intern/coop that comes in ready to learn and expand their knowledge is thought very highly of. They should be a sponge, and towards the end of the internship their input will be relied upon more.

 

Generally they aren't given very difficult job duties and the role can be boring at times, but that's because it's a huge risk to leave important work to someone with no experience.

 

When it comes to hiring later on, those with the experience are thought much higher of than those without.

[orchidrose]

Agreed with gatorclaws. I've seen some absolutely terrible interns in my time. We had one who cried to her boss about she was questioning her sexuality and was having such a hard time with it, which is why she was having trouble getting her work done. Another applied for a job opening halfway through her internship, and when she didn't get the job, she sent an e-mail saying she quit and never came back.

 

As an intern, your job is to do every bit of work, including the regular grunt work, with a smile on your face. It's also to seek out as much information as humanly possible. Find the people who are willing to sit down and talk to you about their job, show you what they do, and make sure you're getting everything you can from them. The interns that do this are highly prized, given more responsibility, and maybe even offered a job if one is available when their internship is complete.

 

I will say that every employer that I've interviewed with (including the one I'm working for now) said that my internships were what made them at least call me in for an interview/hire me. I was required to do four for my undergrad degree, and while they were a huge pain at the time, they're now totally worth it.

[glegend]

I have nothing against them. My retail job takes on a few coop students each semester. Like I said I have nothing against them, so far we've had some pretty good kids who've been coming. They work. Our last guy didn't do much, actually he would do nothing. He pretty much was lazy to do any work, like we'd give him some light work to do and he would do part of it and then say he is sick and has to leave. I think the worst part was when we asked him to take some patio chairs out of the boxes and put the cushions on them and then he said he was sick and the very next day he tells us he wants to do landscaping as a career. First thing that came out of my mouth was how will he possibly survive doing landscaping for a gc which is physical work that is stressing to the body, if he can't take out a few chairs out of the box.

 

There are two peopel in this world. People who don't mind to take on interns or coop students. However, there are people who don't want to because they don't want to take on the risk of having these students come in and cause a disaster in their offfice. In which I don't blame them, my career path is the trades and personally I would not want someone coming in and starting problems in the company. However, I do understand that we all need to get some experience and its a great way to gain some, and some people do undestand that and will take on interns or coop students.

[ghost69]

we always say temp/intern, not coop, so i was thrown off on this. when i hear coop i think chickens.

 

 

i think nothing of them to be honest. they do their job or they are gone. the only difference between them and a full-time employee is they are easy to get rid of if they don't do the job. as far as i'm concerned, they are just another employee.