Graduate Co-Op

 

Eight Steps to a successful work experience!

 

  1. Co-op Is Optional For All Graduate Business Students

Cooperative education is optional for graduate level business students. However, for students attending full-time, it may be beneficial to complete a co-op work block sometime during the student's program. An MBA student cannot take more than two MBA courses during any quarter they are registered for co-op.

  1. Beginning the Job Search

Students should begin with their co-op coordinator, Emily Ellis, to discuss resumes, interviewing techniques, job opportunities, target companies, and any other process or preparation issues.

  1. How Your Academic Advisor Fits In

Students should check with their academic advisor for approval of the work block (content) and to ensure they will not be on co-op when a course required for graduation is offered. All co-op blocks have to be registered on Job Zone. At the end of the co-op, an online report must be comleted.

  1. How Courses Fit In

If you plan on taking any courses while on co-op, you must add them through the normal processes. No more than one course is recommended however. If you do not plan to take courses, it is your responsibility to drop them during the drop/add period. Otherwise tuition will be due and you will receive a grade.

  1. Registering For Co-op

Students need to be in good academic standing (GPA 3.0) and must register before beginning the work. Single Co-op work blocks need to be a minimum of 10 weeks in length. Students also should have completed at least 24 credit hours, and have at least one academic quarter remaining (12 credit hours).

You need to register on the RIT Job Zone through the Co-op Office by following these steps:

  1. Go to www.rit.edu/oce
  2. Click on Students
  3. Click on Report Co-op or Internship along the left navigation bar
  4. Log in with your RIT computer account
  5. Complete ALL information requested
  6. Click on Submit at the bottom of the form
  7. Receive your confirmation page

 

  1. International Students

International students need written authorization from the International Student Office and cannot co-op until three consecutive quarters of study have been completed.

  1. Getting Your Co-op Evaluated and Graded

At the end of your co-op, you will receive the message below in your email from oceevaluations@rit.edu. Do not delete this message. Please read it, and complete your evaluation.

"You are receiving this email because you need to complete your Student Work Report for the co-op quarter(s) at the bottom of this email.

PROCESS: Once you submit your Student Work Report and your employer submits the Employer Evaluation, your academic department will review your Work Report. Please spend the appropriate time on this report. It will be accepted or rejected by your faculty advisor based on your thoughtful responses.

Once accepted, your department will then submit an "S" grade for your co-op. Please note, your department may not review the forms and submit your grade until the end of the quarter.

SAVING YOUR WORK: The save feature is not working properly. You can try saving in small sections, but saving your work in Word and pasting it into the form would be better. Submit does work if you complete all sections.

DOUBLE BLOCK: You must submit the Student Work Report and your employer must submit the Employer Evaluation for each individual quarter of the double block. This will allow your department to review the forms and give you an "S" grade for each individual quarter.

PAST QUARTERS: If you are receiving this email for a past quarter's co-op and you have already been given an "S" grade through your department, please reply to this email with "quarter" and "co-op S grade" in the subject. Your status will be updated in the system and you will stop receiving these reminder emails.

REJECTED WORK REPORTS: If necessary, you will be able to correct a rejected work report so that it can then be accepted by your department and you can be given and "S" grade."

  1. The Co-op Grade

All co-op blocks carry zero credit hours (no tuition charged) and are assigned Incomplete grades if the report is not completed and graded by the end of the quarter. These incomplete grades revert to permanent fails if you do not complete a satisfactory report. Don't let this happen to you!

If you are on a double block co-op you must complete an evaluation for each block. You will not receive a grade if your evaluation is not completed.