| Full-time undergraduate program |
Going hand in hand with it's top-notch engineering program are top-notch career
service resources and co-op programs. To start with, a large portion of the
school is involved with co-oping (it was the main reason I chose Tech over some
more "prestigious" schools up north). There are close to 500 or so companies
that actively recruit throughout the year (mostly in the fall though) for co-ops
and interns.
The co-op program is a really nice way to break up the normal never-ending
school program. It's great to take every other semester off of full-time classes
and make good money working for a great company. There are jobs available
anywhere and within any industry you can think of (although most have an
engineering focus). You can stay in town and work at small firms or
manufacturing facilities, as well as large internationally respected corporations
(Coke, Motorola, Home Depot, etc. are among some available locally). The co-op
program works by rotating a semester of school and a semester of work, beginning
anytime after your second semester at Tech. In order to complete the voluntary
program and receive recognition, you must work for at least 4 terms, but you're
free to work as many as your employer and you want. The only draw-back to
co-oping is that you have to stay with the same company the entire time, barring
unforeseen economic or performance circumstances that can change anything. This
is why a lot of people like to intern during the summers and experience a wide
array of industries before they graduate. One thing the co-op program has over
this though, is that you can actually say you've got a solid 2 or 3 years of work
experience with one employer when you're done. And depending on the company,
your responsibility (and salary) level increases with each semester of
employment. The co-op program is a good way for employers to "groom" younger
people into a very productive and desirable job applicant when they're done.
It's also a great way to make and keep contacts as well as secure a position with
a company well before you graduate.
The full-time employment services are also extremely respectable. I've been in
this process for the past 6 months, and the only complaints I have are that I
wish I knew more about the system earlier and that I had more time to take
advantage of everything. As with most things at Tech, there are more than enough
resources available, but you have to make the effort to go out and learn how to
take advantage of them yourself. The career services has a completely
internet-based system (as with just about everything else at Tech), that provides
easy and consistent contact between student and the hundreds of recruiters who
are actively seeking them.
Salaries coming out of Tech seem to be generally higher than those offered to
similar applicants from other schools. Plus, there are a lot of recruiters out
there who have a short list of schools from which they recruit, and Tech seems to
be on just about all of them (not talking law, medical or business here, although
there are a lot of emplyers who seek Tech students for unrelated industries
because of the school's reputation for producing strong analytical,
problem-solving, team-oriented people).
|
Georgia Institute of Technology Admission & Application Surveys
