For more than a century, UMass Lowell has been educating students to work in the real world to solve real-world problems.

We understand that many students learn best by doing, and sound educational practice includes planned, meaningful experiences outside the classroom.

Our undergraduate Professional Cooperative Education program is an important part of our experiential education offerings, providing students with the opportunity to integrate theory and practice, to gain invaluable professional and technical skills, and to make significant contributions to your organization.

How Does it Work?

At UMass Lowell, professional cooperative education is viewed as an academic program and is coordinated and supervised by the professional co-op administrator and faculty affiliated with each College with the same care and rigor as any other course in the academic curriculum.

Benefits for Employers

The University of Massachusetts Lowell Professional Cooperative Education Program is a dynamic and mutually beneficial partnership between students, employers, and the Manning School of Business, Kennedy College of Sciences and Francis College of Engineering. Employers work with designated co-op coordinators to arrange responsible positions that combine genuine usefulness to their company with strong learning components for the student employee.

Benefits for employer partners include:

• Quality candidates for temporary or seasonal positions and specific projects
• Flexible, cost effective workforce; professional staff able to pursue more critical projects
• Proven, cost-effective way to recruit and evaluate future employees
• Ability to enhance company name recognition and increase branding opportunities at the University and in the larger community
• Regular, supportive communication to participating employers and students from co-op coordinator with opportunities for on-site visits and candid evaluations of students and the co-op program.

Timeline for Co-op

Co-ops often occur in either 3-month or 6-month cycles. While time frames may fluctuate based on the organization, they most commonly occur with the following time frames.