The Journey of a mature Co-op Student
Being hired for a Co-op job to work at the IT department of the Okanagan College has been an amazing experience! Something it was not a priority for me, but that I realize now it has been of extreme importance for my new career, and recommend it to all students.
As a mature student, I decided that I would dedicate myself full time to the Computer Information Systems program at the college, and try to finish it fast. I did enroll on the Co-op program, but I didn’t try very hard to get a co-op job because I thought it would take me longer to graduate. But a great opportunity to work at the Okanagan College IT department as a co-op student came up, and I was hired!
My co-op job has been a very practical experience to work and observe lots of things on real life, things that I learned on some of my computer science courses, but that work different when applied to real projects. I have been experiencing to be part of a great IT team of knowledgeable analysts and developers, to understand how the team works, and how IT management thrives to get projects accomplished and problems solved.
I am very thankful to all the IT team, as well as to the Co-op team of the Okanagan College, for making me feel welcome, and for making everything possible for me to have this great learning and experience. I have also had the pleasure to work with Princeton S., the marketing co-op student who has been my partner on this journey.
The co-op term was for 4 months, but at the end of June, my term was extended for another 4 months, which has been a really great opportunity, for I was able to continue to work on the projects, and to actually finish the necessary documentation. We were able to finish the new system application, test it, and put into production, which gave me a full spectrum of the full project cycle.
During all this learning process, I was very lucky to have been guided by the Okanagan College IT team department, who have patiently showed me how to work with Visual Studio, and walked me through the application process. Having great mentors is probably one of the most important things we can wish for during a co-op term experience!
