Hey everyone! My name is Jeylan. I’m a 4/4 Industrial and Systems Engineering major stacking an accelerated master’s, and a former co-op dropout! I’m sadly a senior who is going into the sem with a part-time and a full-time offer already lined up post-grad, BUT I still don’t have all of this figured out. That’s kind of the whole point of this column. So I am here to help you—and myself—figure out your career as you go!
I started as a co-op kid. I dropped it because, in my experience, the trade-off wasn’t giving me what I needed at the time. I don’t say that to talk anyone out of co-op—in fact I am a strong advocate for it—but the “right path” conversation gets oversimplified a lot on this campus, and I’d rather be honest about how I actually landed where I did.
Somewhere in the years since, I became the person underclassmen come to for advice before a career fair, before an interview, before deciding whether to take an offer. Not because I have a title that says so — just because I’ve sat through the awkward conversations, sent the emails I was scared to send, and made enough mistakes to have real opinions about them. It also helps a bit that I am the president of the Society of Women Engineers, so me and recruiters are now besties.
So here’s the disclaimer: I’m not the most polished, corporate-suit version of a professional. I curse more than this column will ever let on, and I spent an afternoon this summer coloring thank you notes at my desk instead of running around on the floor of a plant. But I can help you become the professional version of yourself — or help you figure out what you don’t want to be, which is its own useful thing to learn early.
This column is going to stay what it’s always been: co-op and internship advice, plus the wider stuff nobody tells you until you’re already in it — interviews, career fairs, the part-time-offer conversation, salary negotiations, and whatever else is stressing out the people around me at any given moment. Some issues will be practical and structured. Some will be me thinking through something in real time, three hours before the deadline, same as you probably are with whatever homework is due this week.
If you’ve got a question or a topic you want covered, reach out. I’d rather write about the thing actually keeping you up than guess at it.
So, happy to chat this year and, as always, my email and messages are always open!
