Carleton Computer Science: Explaining Co-op Criticism

In today’s job market, large tech layoffs, early-talent program closures, and declines in new grad hiring are more prevalent than ever.

For computer science students, having real work experience before you graduate is now an absolute necessity and therefore the quality of a university’s co-op program is a key factor in picking where you go to school.

Enrolling in an accredited university co-op program not only provides exclusive opportunities, but also allows your employer to benefit from a 25%-30% refundable tax credit on your salary (with a maximum of $3,000 per work placement).

With all that in mind, it seems like being in a co-op program would be more important than ever… right?

So why do so many computer science students at Carleton openly criticize or even decide to drop out of our co-op program?

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For those with zero relevant work experience who need to get their foot in the door, I genuinely do recommend initially enrolling in co-op.

Although it’s possible to find an internship on your own, access to the co-op exclusive job board is worth having given how bad the job market is for students right now.

However, you should go into the program with the expectation that its provided resources are NOT going to be enough to get a job or be tailored to the tech industry.

Additionally, it’s important you’re aware that Carleton University’s Co-op Participation Agreement heavily prioritizes retaining employer partnerships over doing what’s in the best interests of students.

The “One Decline Policy” coupled with the unreasonable 48-hour acceptance window prevent students from taking full advantage of the advertised “hundreds of Carleton exclusive opportunities” they’re paying to access.

The One Decline Policy

The “One Decline Policy” prevents students from declining more than one offer of employment per term. Additionally, failure to attend an interview will also count as a student’s “one-decline”. Students are also not allowed to conduct any further interviews after accepting an offer.

This means that if you decline any offer, you will be forced to accept your next offer no matter what.

The policy essentially coerces students to “intentionally not apply” to roles out of fear they will be forced to accept a position they would have otherwise only considered a backup option. Co-op even encourages students to only apply to roles they are “absolutely certain they want” despite paying to access the exclusive job board.

From my point of view, this policy effectively scams students or (at the very least) creates an experience that does not match what students believe they’re paying for: “the ability to apply to hundreds of exclusive (non public) job opportunities”.

The justification for this policy is that it keeps partnered employers happy. Companies do not want to invest time filtering and interviewing candidates only for those candidates to decline offers. The policy reduces the likelihood of students applying indiscriminately, backing out, and wasting employer time and resources.

It is worth noting that this policy was also designed to prevent certain students from monopolizing interview slots and opportunities. Although at face value this seems like it’s in the best interest of students, it’s ultimately a byproduct of catering to companies by reducing the number of hours companies need to spend interviewing students.

Conservative Applying

The policy’s elicited “conservative applying” is especially harmful to students early in their careers, who are uncertain about how many applications they need to submit to secure a job.

They are caught in a dilemma: avoid applying to roles that aren’t “exactly what they want” or risk wasting their co-op fee and being unemployed.

A common scenario is that a student with zero work experience will apply to as many jobs as they can out of fear they are unqualified. They quickly receive two offers for roles that are “less interesting” or “relevant” than what might have come along later (ex: IT job over a Developer job) and are forced to accept one immediately and conduct no further interviews.

The opposite scenario is a student who is applying too conservatively out of fear of being forced to take a “less interesting” role. By not applying to enough positions, they may end up with no offers despite paying for access to the same hundreds of jobs.

As you gain more experience and want to get more prestigious positions, you are systemically coerced to apply even less to avoid being forced to take positions that are worse than the one you had previously.

In the real world, job seekers never have to think twice before applying to a position. It’s in a student’s best interest to take as many interviews as possible not only for the opportunity options, but also for the sake of practicing what it’s like to interview.

Change of Mind After Interviews

Another reason the policy is a detriment to students is because it makes the assumption that a student is able to identify that a job is one “they are certain they want” before they’ve actually had the interview.

If after an interview a student realizes they wouldn’t want to work on the project or team they interviewed for, but receive an offer of employment, they either have to use their “one decline” and risk unemployment or take an offer for a job they don’t want.

Let’s take a look at a problematic edge case:

You interview with company (a) and company (b) and realize you’d hate to work for both of them after the interviews.

However, both companies make you offers of employment.

Unless you receive another offer within 48 hours, you’ll have no choice but to take a job you don’t want or else you’ll be kicked out of the co-op program.

I’d even argue that this case is one that is not in the best interest of employers. Employers should not want students who don’t want to work for them. However, I’m sure some percentage end up with students who presented nicely during the interview, but were forced to take the offer out of obligation to Carleton’s policies.

Forced Offers Acceptances

It’s very common for one employer to have multiple roles. However, you have to be really careful in applying to the same company twice.

It’s possible an employer will set up one interview to verify your qualifications for many roles at the same time, meaning one interview could lead to several offers.

If that company wants to hire you, they can offer you two offers (one for each role) and abuse the “One Decline Policy” to force you to work for them.

This means that if after this one interview you realize you’d hate to work at this company, you may have no choice in working there unless you want to be kicked out of the program and lose all the money you’ve already spent in co-op fees.

48 Hour Acceptance Window

What furthers the negative impact of “one decline policy” is the tight 48 hour acceptance window. Upon receiving an offer, students are only given 2 business days to accept or decline the offer.

This short time frame is unreasonable and verges on being predatory.

It preys on students’ anxieties about potentially not receiving future offers, effectively coercing them into accepting the current offer to avoid the risk of unemployment.

This coercion increases the number of student job matches and therefore reduces the pool of students still seeking placements.

While increasing the number of job matches might seem beneficial for students, it’s actually quite the opposite.

Outside the environment Carleton facilitates, employers would normally have to provide candidates with sufficient time to make informed decisions.

The co-op program’s choice to cater to employers essentially denies students the time they would have had outside co-op.

In the real world, candidates can easily communicate with recruiters to request additional time or inform them of other pending offers. Many of my own internships (outside the co-op program) have allowed much longer than 48 hours for decision-making. Based on personal experience, 5 business days to a week feels reasonable.

The decision to enforce a 48-hour acceptance window ultimately caters to employers rather than advocating for students, who deserve (the time they would have had otherwise) to make informed decisions.

As a student, I can’t access the employer “participation agreement” equivalent, but I would be curious to know whether companies also have a maximum window of time they have to adhere to in communicating with students.

Other Canadian Co-op Programs

Ultimately, employer / university partnerships are the key to the existence of co-op programs, so inevitably employers will be prioritized over students. Every university does this to some extent. However, Carleton’s bias towards employers is particularly egregious and goes beyond the practices happening at other universities.

Carleton’s co-op program is the only co-op program I am aware of that has a “One Decline Policy” and after looking at the co-op participation agreements of other Canadian universities, you’ll realize that Carleton caters to employers more than any other university in Canada.

Waterloo & uOttawa - “Rank / Match System”

Waterloo and uOttawa have what’s referred to as a “ranking” system.

At Waterloo, students and employers rank each other by preference after interviewing. On a scheduled date, an algorithm determines job matches for every open position based student and employer rank scores.

Waterloo students can rank up to five jobs as “not interested”, effectively declining the job (since ranking an employer last can still get you matched with that employer). In contrast, Carleton’s co-op policies (in the worst case) give employers the ability to force desired candidates to work for them.

It’s worth noting that Waterloo students are not able to see how employers rank them unless they are an employer’s first ranked choice. If a student is an employer’s first choice, then the student IS told they’ve received an offer and can then can rank that employer as their first choice if they want to accept.

Waterloo is also more transparent and allows students to view how many applications a job has received or how many other students are being interviewed for the same job.

If you Google “Waterloo Co-op Reddit”, you will definitely be hit with a wall of complaints related to this co-op system, but at the very least this system is more impartial for students.

University of British Columbia

UBC expects students to respond to employers within 2 business days, however this requirement is not coupled with a “One Decline Policy”. Meaning students can decline offers without the fear of being penalized or being forced to accept the next offer they receive.

University of Toronto

UofT does not enforce a “One Decline Policy” and expects students to provide a signed copy of offer letters within three business days of receipt to their co-op office.

York University

York expects you to accept offers within 48 hours, but has no equivalent to the “One Decline Policy”.

McMaster University

There is nothing of note about their co-op policy, I couldn’t even find a “you need to accept offers within x time frame” equivalent for them. Here is their participation agreement equivalent.

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Co-op vs Career Services

It’s really important you know that as a Carleton student, you have access to a ton of services through “Career Services” regardless of whether or not you’re in co-op. Career services provides resume / cover letter reviews, mock interviews, job search advice sessions and more.

Co-op offers some additional services, but other than the job board, the only one of note is “One-on-one advising”. A full list can be found on this page under the “What support is available to co-op students?” section.

Although these services exist, do not use them for anything tech related. The staff providing these services are great for “general advice” related to job searching and how to best present yourself. However, they do not have technical backgrounds and you should not assume their understanding of how to present technical skills, projects, etc is accurate to the expectations of the tech industry.

The “networking events” they list as a service for co-op students are open to everyone 90% of the time, however some previous events I’ve attended have had a “resume bank” where only co-op students could submit.

As someone who has been around since before COVID, I can unfortunately say that the quality of networking events that Carleton has been organizing recently are nowhere near as good as they used to be.

Events that were annual before COVID like “Net Night” (a networking event dedicated to tech and STEM) no longer exist and all we get now is Carleton’s termly career fair.

Since COVID, Carleton has been opting for “online” networking events that don’t actually ever include a “networking component”. Normally these events just boil down to a company giving a presentation and maybe answering questions in a chat. These events usually have no opportunity to 1-on-1 chat or shake anyone’s hand.

COOP 1000 Course

You’ll anecdotally hear students complain about the COOP 1000 course and how it’s outdated, not tailored to the tech industry, etc.

For the most part, they’re not wrong. This course is only going to provide you with the bare minimum and I’d highly recommend all computer science students make the effort to find additional tech industry related career resources.

Students should recognize that this course is essentially a “template”.

It seems like each department that has a co-op option has a slightly modified version of the course with minor changes to the base template to better match the expectations of that industry.

It’s Just A Sanity Check

Personally, I think students come in with expectations that are way too high for this course.

Ultimately, it’s just a “sanity check” co-op has to make sure that students know how the program works and have seen the different components of a job search: what is a resume, what is a cover letter, what is a SAR statement, etc.

If you’re an incoming student at Carleton, I’d say the course is comparable to Ontario’s Grade 10 “Career Studies” curriculum.

Lack Of Tailoring

Many students will comment on the “lack of tailoring” in the course.

It’s worth noting that there is no public facing mention that the COOP 1000 course is intended to be tailored.

Regardless, please do not assume this course is going to be tailored to the tech industry.

Here is a list of the only contents that seem designed specifically for the tech sector:

• That you should “put projects on your resume”

• Occasionally in the course content, you’ll see a job title placefolder subbed out as something tech related

• There is a “job description reading” exercise where the job postings were software related

Here are some important topics you should research on your own that are not present in the course:

• How to correctly write resume bullets about technical work, projects, etc: An engineering manager can make a judgement on how experienced a candidate is based on how “properly” written their technical resume bullets are.

• What skills and technologies are worth including from your projects and courses: I see a lot of students struggle to pull key learning outcomes out of projects and courses that are legitimately relevant to their job search.

• Technical Interview types: Go on Youtube and watch some guide videos on how to clearly explain your thoughts during technical interviews. Go on LeetCode or HackerRank and practice what it’s like to do an online assessment. Go on Reddit, Glassdoor, Blind, etc. and read about what kinds of student interviews happen at {x} company.

Want to learn more? I do a presentation each year on how to find your first tech job that you can check out here. I also gave a (better) presentation at the Canadian University Software Engineering Conference on how students can better kick start their careers here.

Generic Resume Advice

A lot of the “templated” co-op resume advice does not align well with the expectations of modern tech resumes.

It’s worth noting that I’ve heard from students this year that there have been some improvements like recommending to students to use Jake’s Resume, but I still see students make poor choices on their resumes that I know stem from co-op program recommendations.

Here is some surface level advice for students who build their resumes only using the co-op department’s advice:

• If you are an undergrad with zero / little work experience, you don’t need a two page resume. Don’t duplicate points just to force two pages. I highly recommend you start with a one page resume. Even with my 4-5 years of experience, I still use a one page resume.

• Do not use the “combined” resume template. I dislike the idea of not putting experience at the top of a resume. I find that many students using this template stretch out their resume to two pages by having duplicate points between the skills section and experience section. I’m aware that co-op recommends using this template when you have little experience, but wouldn’t that mean that by virtue of you using this template that you’re essentially telling employers you don’t actually have any experience?

• Do not waste space with a career objective section. If you’re applying to a position, the objective is obviously that you want the job you applied to. This is wasted resume space.

• In my opinion, you shouldn’t include an “availability section”. Co-op recommends you state what length of position you’re looking for (4 months, 8 months, etc). Just like with the career objective, if you’re applying to a position that stated the length was 4 months, they should be able to assume you’re free for 4 months.

• Do not write a paragraph of text talking about what skills you got out of a specific class. Especially if you’re a 2nd year and everyone is taking the same classes. Include the course title at most.

Someday I want to write a proper full article on how best to sell yourself as a student with zero work experience. So stay tuned for that.

The Co-op Fees

Students who are already on the hook for large tuition payments are obviously going to criticize additional fees.

It’s worth highlighting that you are paying for more than just the job board. Most students (like most aspects of university) do not take advantage of the services offered and there’s many services of varying quality that you gain access to by being in the co-op program.

The approximate total cost of co-op fees (so the fees for all 5 years of the program) for a Carleton computer science student to graduate with co-op distinction (in 2024) is just under $4500, and the cost of acquiring a 4 month placement is about $1000 (one admin fee + one work term fee).

According to the Co-op Salary Survey, the minimum computer science co-op hourly salary for 2023-2024 was $16.35, the average was $25.38 and the maximum was $47.63.

Minimum wage in Ontario will soon be $17.20 / hour and most entry level tech co-op wages will be atleast a bit more than that. I’d say you’ll probably make atleast $12,000 - $15,000 during your first 4 month placement and even more during your later placements.

So on paper the return on investment of paying co-op fees is worthwhile. It’s really more of a question of whether you need to pay these fees in the first place.

Payment Breakdown

At the time of writing this article, both “co-op admin fees” and “co-op work term fees” cost $484.25 each.

It’s worth noting that these fees will likely increase during your time in the program. In 2019-2020, both admin and work term fees were $405.50 each.

Let’s assume you’re in computer science and follow the recommended work study sequence:

This means you will have paid:

Four co-op admin fees (Today: $1937)

• Fall 2nd Year (COMP 1000 course)
• Winter 2nd Year (Job Search)
• Winter 3rd Year (Job Search)
• Fall 4th Year (Job Search)

Five co-op work term fees (Today: $2421.25)

• Summer 2nd Year
• Fall 3rd Year
• Summer 3rd Year
• Winter 4th Year
• Summer 4th Year

Note: This assumes you complete two 8-month internships. If you decide you wanted to break one of the 8-month internships into two 4-month internships instead, this would add additional admin fees for any term you also require access to the job board.

Paying To Find Your Own Placement

Yes, if you find your own placement outside the co-op board, you will still be required to pay the admin and work term fees for those terms even if you had to put in the work to find the placement.

A lot of students find this annoying, but if you don’t want to pay these fees, just drop co-op before your job search term begins.

The whole point of being in co-op is to help you find work. If you can find work on your own, you don’t need to be in co-op.

The only reason to pay the fees despite not actually using the job board is to maintain your accredited co-op program status.

However, at the point where you’re willing to put in the time of doing your own self-directed search, you’re probably going to start subconsciouly filtering companies you know won’t hire you without co-op accredidation anyways.

As time goes on, you’ll also realize that the reality is that “bigger” companies can afford to value talent over the tax break associated with the co-op accredication.

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My Advice For Students

I often hear students ask “is co-op worth it?” and I find most fall into one of the following buckets:

“I Found a Software Placement Previously”

If you have been able to find a software related job in the past, co-op is probably not worth it to you.

The only thing you’ll get out of co-op is some additional jobs to apply to and the tax refund eligibility. Having these might be worth your piece of mind, but if you were also able to find a job on your own without the tax credit being a factor, do you really need them?

”I Have Zero Relevant Experience”

If you have zero relevant work experience, then you should definitely start off in co-op (despite everything negative I’ve said).

The fees are not a real concern as you will make that money back on your first paycheck.

In the current job market, finding your first placement is going to be a struggle and you should do everything you can to increase your chances of finding something.

Do not risk losing potential opportunities that require co-op accreditation.

You will eventually see that it is easier to get interviews once you have at least one or two internships under your belt.

TL;DR: Only consider leaving co-op once you are confident you can find employment without it.

It’s a really common piece of advice to use co-op to find your first work placement and eventually transition to doing your own fully independent job searches.

”I Can’t Get A Single Co-op Interview”

This year, a significantly higher percentage of students were struggling to find any sort of interview, let alone two or more.

Despite the fact that I’ve implied students are encouraged to limit their applications on the co-op board, I’m 100% sure there are students who absolutely do apply to every single one of the jobs on the co-op board and still struggle to find an interview or job.

If you’re one of these students, the first thing I’d say is that you, more than anyone, should be upset with the co-op department because ultimately they took your money and their resources and advice didn’t work.

I’d also say (in the nicest way possible) that unfortunately, you’re probably doing something wrong.

Maybe your resume sucks. Maybe you need to do some kind of side project to get some kind of slightly more marketable skill.

I don’t know what it is, but if you applied to several hundred jobs and didn’t hear back, you need to reevaluate the way you’re conducting your job search.

Some of this responsibility should fall on the quality of the resources provided by the co-op department, but a good chunk of it falls on you for not making the necessary effort to figure it out on your own.

Side Note: A lot of my criticism of co-op in this article probably seems like it only applies to the “elite few” students who are able to pull off getting multiple interviews and offers. I’m aware this is partially the case, but I hope you can see how Carleton’s co-op policies do elicit behaviors that work against students no matter how successful their job searches are.

”Found My Own Placement, But Scared To Leave Co-op”

If you are able to get an offer outside the co-op job board, but don’t want to permanently close the door on having access to the co-op job board, you could potentially choose to not inform the co-op office of your placement.

Note: This goes against the co-op participation agreement, but they have no way of knowing you’re working a job if you never let them know.

By not informing the co-op office, you won’t have to pay the “co-op work term fee”, but also will not receive credit, and you will not be considered a full-time student for that term.

By losing full-time student status, this may impact eligibility for scholarships, insurance, student benefits, etc. However, if you’ve done the math and saving the cost of the “co-op work term fee” makes sense, then go for it.

In regards to graduating with “co-op designation”, no employer is going to care about it if you have tangible work experience.

If you found a placement on your own, but are in a job search term, you’ve likely already paid your “co-op admin fee” for that term and wont be able to get that back.

Concluding Thoughts

Carleton’s co-op program prioritizes partnered employers over student well being. This approach contradicts the primary goal of an educational institution: to support and nurture its students’ careers.

The “One Decline Policy” and the narrow 48-hour acceptance window create a restrictive and stressful environment, pushing students to limit the number of applications they make on a job board they pay to access while sometimes even forcing them to accept roles they don’t want.

Carleton’s co-op program could greatly improve its student experience by revising its participation agreement to better balance the needs of students and employers.

Despite these criticisms, in the current challenging job market, computer science students with no work experience should still consider starting with the co-op program to gain initial industry exposure. However, they should be prepared to navigate the system strategically and consider transitioning to independent job searches as they gain experience and confidence.

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Special thanks to Rebecca Kempe for helping edit and improve this article!

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Want advice or just interested in chatting? Feel free to book a chat with me here to discuss career stuff, jobs searcing, resumes, etc.