Cooperative Education
An innovative approach to education that integrates professional industry experience into the academic curriculum
Experiential learning, anchored by our world-renowned cooperative education program, is the heart of a Northeastern education. Starting in 1909, the College of Engineering was the first school at Northeastern to offer the co-op program. Today the university is ranked No. 1 in internships/co-ops by U.S. News and World Report.
Co-op gives BS, MS, and PhD students an opportunity to work within their profession for four, six, or eight-month periods as part of their academic program, giving them real-world experience while helping to finance their education. Co-op positions are also available locally and globally and for industry and research positions.
Co-op is also of high value to employers, providing them access to talented and innovative students to meet their workforce needs and business objectives.
In light of the unusual impact on the economy and working conditions around the world resulting from COVID-19, some temporary exceptions have been made to the definition of co-op. After approval, please consult with your co-op coordinator to learn more.
Co-op Quick Facts
We Are No. 1 in Cooperative Education
Cooperative education provides students real-world experience employed in their field of interest for six months as part of the academic curriculum. See how these students are applying what they learn in the classroom while on the job and gaining a competitive edge upon graduation, including full time job offers.
Bioengineering at the Speed of Covid
Ella Strzegowski (Bioengineering E’23) embarked on a co-op at Moderna in the fall of 2021, just as the company was applying for its biologics license and COVID-19’s Omicron variant was tearing through the population. Her experience placed her at the epicenter of covid-related research even as the virus—and the world’s response to it—changed by the day.
PhD Research for Impact
Archil Lelashvili (MS in Information Systems) came to Northeastern from the nation of Georgia. Pursuing a co-op experience as a software engineer at Boston-based Quickbase, he learned to “translate ideas into code,” gaining insights from the senior software engineers around him while working with the same suite of tools.
Out of This World Experiences
Mechanical Engineering student Paige Butler shares how her involvement in the student group Students for the Exploration and Development of Space landed her two co-ops at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and subsequently, a full-time position following graduation. Learn how Northeastern University’s cooperative education program helps undergraduate students explore their passions while providing unparalleled opportunities for career advancement.
Sample Co-op Employer Partners
- Abbott
- Abiomed
- Boston Scientific
- Johnson and Johnson
- Lyndra
- MIT Lincoln Labs
- Draper Labs
- Medtronic
- SeLux
- Smith and Nephew
- Sunovion
- Traverso Labs
- A123 Systems
- 1366 Technologies
- 24M
- Acorda Therapeutics
- Ambri
- Arsenal Medical
- Ashland
- Biogen Idec
- Bristol-Meyers Squibb
- CONTINUUS
- Dow Chemical Company
- DuPont
- Eink
- Entegris
- GVD Corporation
- Henkel Loctite
- Infinium
- Metalor Technologies
- Morphic Therapeutics
- Nano-C
- Nuvera Fuel Cells
- Pellion Technologies
- Pfizer
- Sanofi Genzyme
- Selecta Biosciences
- Shaw, Stone and Webster
- Takeda
- Technip
- TEL
- Waters Corporation
- Xtalic Corporation
- Barletta Engineering Corp
- CDM, Inc.
- DN Tanks, Inc.
- Environmental Partners Group, LLC
- J.L. Marshall & Sons, Inc.
- McKenzie Engineering Group, Inc.
- Natgun Corporation
- Parsons Brinkerhoff
- PB Power
- Simpson Gumpertz & Heger, Inc.
- Suffolk Construction
- Tetra Tech Rizzo
- Turner Construction Company
- Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc.
- Advanced Micro Devices
- Amazon Robotics
- Analog Devices
- Apple
- Bose
- Boston Engineering
- Boston Red Sox
- Cisco
- Draper
- Hasbro
- IBM
- Intel
- iRobot
- Jacobs Engineering Group
- Lockheed Martin
- Medtronic
- MIT Lincoln Lab
- Motorola Solutions
- Raytheon
- SimpliSafe
- SpaceX
- Starry
- Tesla
- WHOOP
- Amazon Robotics
- Analogic Corporation
- Becton Dickinson
- Bose Corporation
- Boston Scientific Corporation
- Foster-Miller
- General Electric
- The Gillette Company
- Insulet
- MIT Lincoln Laboratory
- Pollak – A Stoneridge Company
- Pratt & Whitney
- Raytheon
- SharkNinja
- Tesla
- United Parcel Service
- Amazon
- Apple
- Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital
- BMW
- Boehringer Ingelheim
- Dassault Systemes Americas Corporation
- Dell EMC
- Fidelity
- Goldman Sachs
- Mass General Hospital
- MathWorks
- Nokia
- Peapod Digital Labs
- Retail Business Services
- Tesla
Co-op Team for Undergraduate and Graduate Departmental Degrees
Supporting programs in the following departments:
Bioengineering, Chemical Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Co-op Team for Multidisciplinary Masters Degrees
Supporting the following programs:
Cyber-Physical Systems, Data Architecture and Management, Information Systems, Software Engineering Systems, Telecommunication Networks
Student Experiences
Traveling the World to Connect Biology, Computing, and Data
Andrea Chávez Muñoz, E’24, bioengineering, is focusing her future on computational bioengineering, with co-op and internship experiences everywhere from Boston to Switzerland to her home in Lima, Peru.
Lab Experiences Lead to Co-op Work in Switzerland
Gwyneth McNamara, E’24, chemical engineering and biochemistry, has gained extensive laboratory experience working co-ops at two Cambridge, Massachusetts pharmaceutical companies. She is now applying that experience, along with her engineering skills, in a third co-op at a university lab in Winterthur, Switzerland.
Mastering Full Stack Development
Jinal Mamaniya is a Full Stack Developer with 7+ years of hands-on experience designing, developing, implementing, and testing applications and solutions using a variety of front-end and back-end technologies. Her previous experiences and interest in the Information Systems field pushed her to Northeastern University. Her goals on arrival were to leverage her broad development experience […]
Coming soon: A co-op experience living under the ocean in the world’s largest undersea science station
MES/CEE Professor Mark Patterson and CEE Affiliated Faculty Brian Helmuth serve as chief science advisors for the Proteus project, which involves the development of an underwater habitat observatory and lab off the coast of Curacao to research marine science and train for extreme environments like outer space.