The Cooperative Education Program at De Anza College is designed to help students learn to apply classroom knowledge to actual work experience.
It is a letter graded course and is CSU-transferable and applicable towards De Anza certificates and degrees.
The program doesn't necessarily help students find jobs. Instead, it is set up to help students coordinate with their current employers to improve their career skills.
“We don’t have a classroom,” said Carmen Pereida, the program coordinator. “The work place is the classroom.”
Students book individual appointments with co-op instructors according to their schedules.
The ultimate goal is to help students complete their educational goals in the workplace, so the co-op instructors are not limited to those who have relevant experience in the same field.
The program has three divisions or classes: Co-0p 50, 51 and 70. Co-op 50 is for students who have jobs that are related to their majors.
Co-op 51 is similar to Co-op 50, but contains an alternate plan that allows students to alternate between being full-time employees and full-time students. Co-op 70 is for students whose jobs are not related to their majors.
The program uses timecards, learning objective sheets, performance agreements and other tools to solidify the learning process.
Instructors help students find relevance to their futures in their jobs. Consider a business major who works at a restaurant. She might at first not find the work place as a beneficial place for her future career. But after talking with her instructor, she may find that by paying attention to leftovers and customers’ orders, she has the power to give relevant suggestions to the restaurant. This could even lead to an exercise of coming up with a business plan.
Students and instructors evaluate what the students discover at their workplaces during their meetings.
By the end of the quarter, students submit self-evaluations to see if they have met their goals, and what the they have actually learned.
Co-op students say it does make a difference to see what exactly what specific goals have been accomplished versus “I learned something.”
The program requires students to be currently employed in a paid job. Students can only use one work site as the “classroom,” and the supervisor plus the instructor grade the student. Units are credited and transferable to California State Universities and some private colleges.
While working with both instructors and employers, students learn a new way to coordinate their career life, and can earn credit for a job they already have.

COOPERATIVE EDUCATION:

• awards up to four units
per quarter

• meets requirements for
full-time student status

• links instruction to the
work environment

• promotes college and
community relations

• promotes civic enagement