[mgrouchy]

I went to a university basically no one here has ever heard of but The engineering program has the same 4 month on/off schedule. I was a CS student and the CS department has a co-op/internship program that is a bit different, its a minimum 8 months and max 16 months continuous which is really nice. Actually helps you get settled in and accomplish something fairly substantial.

It also, allows you to organize it in a way that you can schedule it to start right before your last semester, so you can potentially start your co-op, complete it, do 1 semester in school then get out in the work force.

[shepting]

I went to school at the University of Regina, and did an engineering co-op 5 years ago. It was amazing to see how gradual it makes moving out from home if you go to school in the same city where you grew up.

My work terms were Regina (home) -> Saskatoon (3 hrs away) -> Waterloo (28 hrs away) -> India (really far) and definitely was able to grow in experience each time.

I'd say it was invaluable for learning what was important and what wasn't with respect to the class materials.

Now I'm at Twitter and often look back to the wide experience I gained at companies where I could leave after 4 months and have no negative repercussions.