Lochlin Duperron
I graduated VIU in 2015 after doing a co-op work placement in the summer of my prior year, and I (realistically speaking) couldn't be happier with the outcome. I feel my life is much richer for having participated.
My co-op in the summer of 2014 was with Boeing, in their New Application Development group. Boeing was reaching out, attempting to get a set of foreign interns, and VIU was chosen to provide one of them. I put my name forward, and after a few interviews, I was chosen to be VIU's representative and was going to Boeing for the summer.
Work at Boeing was great – my co-workers were friendly and helped me get settled in, my manager was amazing, the work was fulfilling, and the pay was more than fair. Along with hands-on experience doing work that I love, I got a chance to be part of a team from around the world (literally, as part of it had a 9-hour time shift, early morning meetings for us were evening ones for them).
Boeing gave me the confidence to apply to positions across Canada, both because of having it on my resume, and having proved to myself that I was able to work away from home. It's not easy, but it's an important part of career development.
I can't recommend co-op strongly enough – it's a chance to get your feet wet in an actual industry, to get experience, to (potentially) leave home. I can't extend my thanks enough to both VIU and Boeing for the opportunities that the Computer Science co-op program provided me.