A day in the life of a Civil Engineering co-op student

As students mill about the same old hallways to get to their classes, other students have chosen to get a taste of the nine-to-five life. Among said students is sophomore Civil Engineering student Erin Harrison. While she was still a high school senior, Harrison was keen on finding an engineering school that offers the co-op program because “it’s a great way to see the different types of job opportunities before having to commit to one upon graduation.”

And, so, she moved from Southern Virginia to the small but robust city of Hoboken. Last fall, the Career Center sent out Harrison’s resume to a number of prospective co-op employers, and she landed an interview at Newark Airport and received a job offer later that week. As of now, she is the only Stevens undergraduate student employed by Newark Airport in their Structural Integrity Department. When asked about whether she misses taking classes at Stevens, Harrison stated that many of the concepts she learned in Mechanics of Solids pertain to her current role. Her primary responsibility at work is figuring out the structural issues of the terminals, then coming up with what projects can be done and how they need to be completed.

Looking back at the process to obtain her first civil engineering co-op, “The Career Center workshops were not that useful in helping me decide whether I want to commit to the co-op program,” Harrison recounted. When asked about her daily commute to Newark, she wistfully recalled taking classes, as she only had to walk 10 to 15 minutes from her apartment to campus. Even though the public-transit-commuter lifestyle is not one that offers many comforts, she emphasized that, aside from the resume-building components offered by the co-op program, there are other subtle advantages. “Taking a break from classes for the first semester has been a much-needed mental reprieve,” she elaborated, “Not constantly having to submit assignments and study for back-to-back exams has definitely been a plus.”

“Even if you’re on the fence about doing co-op, you should consider doing the first one, and then if you feel like it’s not for you, you can drop out of the program.”